The Aquinas - Sept. 27, 2012

See “TAXES” Page 3

WOMEN’S FIELD HOCKEY VICTORIOUS

FIRE DEPARMENT IN-VESTIGATES ARSONS

Women’s field hockey triumphs in past two games. (16)

Scranton Fire Department looks into recent Hill Section fires. (4)

Volume 86, Issue 3 The Student Voice of The University of Scranton Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012

MEET PAUL PORTER, NEW TO THE U.

Read about Paul Porter in one of this week’s People Profiles. (14)

City wants University to pay upCOLLEEN DAY

Staff Writer

CHRISTOPHER DOLANNews Editor

COLLEEN DAYStaff Writer

The University’s lawsuit against the city of Scran-ton over the new parking tax sparked some criti-cism at last week’s city council meeting as report-ed by the Scranton Times-Tribune.

The University is suing the city over the new tax on parking garages and parking lots and is ask-ing the court to consider The University a nonprofit institution, and is there-fore exempt from paying the new 15 percent tax on parking.

The Scranton Times-Tribune reported that city council has threatened to oppose any further zon-ing variances for improve-ments that The University may request.

As reported by the Times-Tribune, Council Solicitor Boyd Hughes said that he was dismayed The University is suing the city over the parking tax because the city has helped The University to grow and that The Univer-

sity should be donating millions to the city.

Hughes asked city council to oppose any fur-ther variances put forth by The University, claim-

ing this would be “one way to stop the University of Scranton from gobbling up any more properties, knowing that they will not receive variances to

construct anything north of Mulberry Street or east of Webster Avenue,” the Times-Tribune reported.

Hughes is also challeng-ing The University’s status

as a charitable institution because he questions how much of The University’s $42.8 million “gross profit” from 2011 went toward charitable causes, as re-

ported by the Times-Tri-bune

“[The University] should kick in a couple million of dollars to the city, because if it weren’t for the city, they wouldn’t have the institution they have,” Mr. Hughes said, as reported by the Times-Tribune.

The University has vol-untarily provided the city of Scranton with a contri-bution of $175,000 annu-ally, totaling to more than $2.6 million since 1983, ac-cording to a statement re-leased by The University.

The Times-Tribune re-ported that city council President Janet Evans also addressed the issue.

“I’m sure members of council and our solicitor will be vigorously oppos-ing any further expan-sions in this city, which has been financially raped by the loss of taxpaying properties,” Evans said, as reported by the Times-Tribune.

The University released the following statement regarding the new park-ing taxes:

PHOTO COURTESY WIKIMEDIA COMMONSSCRANTON CITY council is criticizing The University’s tax-exempt status. Council President Janet Evans said the city is ‘raped’ by tax-exempt property owners, according to a Times-Tribune article.

THE AqUINAS PHOTO / MARISSA ROjASA NEW banner outside the Loyola Science Center ‘celebrates’ The University’s latest building as ‘a human endeavor.’ The new Loyola Science Center will be officially dedicated at a ceremony scheduled for Friday.

INSIDE Forum............ 6-7Arts & Life...8-9

Business......10-11Sci & Tech........12

Campus Notes......2News....................3-5

Faith................13Crossword....14

Sports......15-16http://issuu.com/theaquinas

After years of planning, Dr George Gomez, associate pro-fessor of biology, agreed to shepherd the Loyola Science Center project as a way to bring science into everyday life and to give a voice to Uni-versity students.

“It was important to me because it was important for the University. I wanted to make sure that students were represented in this process. It’s easy for faculty to get representation. A lot of stu-dents don’t have a voice, but I wanted to make sure they did,” Gomez said.

After breaking ground on the building in 2009, The Uni-versity will finally celebrate a dedication ceremonyat 4 p.m. Fridayon the Dionne Green.

Gerry Zaboski, Vice Presi-dent for External Relations and Chair of the Planning Committee for the dedication, said there will be a reception in the Loyola Science Center following the dedication. The reception will include dem-onstrations, food, informative tours, fun things to see and T-shirts for the first 300 people.

“This was the most sub-stantial building project The University has ever under-taken, and it’s a building that was designed to serve all of

our students. It has taken a group of faculty and adminis-trators more than a decade to plan and build,” Zaboski said.

Gomez said he credits Dr. Joseph Dreisbach, the Associ-ate Provost for academic af-fairs and former Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, with making the vision of the Loyola Science Center a real-ity.

“Dr. Dreisbach was the one who really spearheaded the entire effort from the be-ginning. He was the one to have the vision and move the project forward. It’s really his baby,” Gomez said.

The dedication will also be-gin a semester-long series of

events called “Celebrating the Loyola Science Center: Sci-ence as a Human Endeavor,” Zaboski said.

The Loyola Science Center is modeled after Project Kalei-doscope, a leading advocate for designing, building and sustaining undergraduate programs of excellence in sci-ence, technology, engineering and mathematics.

“When we were building it, it wasn’t just about the sci-ence. Science is a part of ev-erybody’s everyday life, but so is learning. When we built the building we didn’t really center it on science, we cen-tered it on learning,” Gomez said.

With Election Day a little more than a month away, many states’ deadlines for absentee ballots are coming up quickly.

Each state has a different deadling for absentee votes. Listed below are a few states close to Pennsylvania and their absentee voting in-formation.

More information, in ad-dition to information can be found at LongDistanceV-oter.org. Election Day is Tue-say, Nov. 6.

PENNSYLVANIA: Voter Registration Form:

Received on or before Oct. 9. Absentee Ballot Applica-tion: Received by 5:00 p.m. on Oct. 30. Voted Absentee Ballot: Received by 5:00 p.m. on Nov. 2.

NEW YORK:Voter Registration Form:

Postmarked by Oct. 12. Ab-sentee Ballot Application: Postmarked by October 30, 2012. Requested in person by Nov. 5. Voted Absentee Ballot: Postmarked by Nov. 5, and received no later than the seventh day after the election. Delivered in person

by close of polls on Election Day, Nov. 6.

NEW JERSEY:Voter Registration Form:

Received on or before Oct. 16. Absentee Ballot Applica-tion: Received on or before Oct. 30 via mail. Request in person by Nov. 5 at 3:00 p.m. Voted Absentee Ballot: received by 8 p.m. on Elec-tion Day

CONNECTICUT:Voter registration: Post-

marked on or before Oct. 23 or on or before Oct. 30 in person.Absentee ballot ap-plication: No specific dead-line. Absentee ballot due: Received by 8:00 p.m. on Nov. 6 if submitting via mail; received on or before Nov. 5 if submitting in person

MARYLAND:Voter Registration Form:

Postmarked on or before Oct. 16. Absentee Ballot Ap-plication: Received on or before Oct. 30 by 8:00 p.m. if requested in person or by mail, or by 11:59 p.m. if requested by fax or email Voted Absentee Ballot: De-livered in person by 8:00 p.m. on Nov. 6, postmarked by Nov. 6 and received by 10:00 a.m. on the second Fri-day after the election

University dedicates Loyola Science Center Absentee voting dead-lines approach quickly

2 THE AQUINASCAMPUS NOTES THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

DATE - Sept. 13 Provided by

The University Police Offi ce

REPORT STATISTICS:

FIRE : 3 counts MARIJUANA POSSESSION: 2 countsASSAULT: 2 counts CRIMINAL MISCHIEF: 3 countsUNDERAGE DRINKING: 5 counts PHONE HARASSMENT: 1 countTRESPASSING: 1 count DUI: 1 count

EDITORIAL

Advertising Manager Marianne Schulmeister

[email protected]

Faculty AdviserKim Pavlick, Ph.D.

[email protected]

Administrative Staff

News Editor Christopher Dolan

[email protected]

Business Editor Joseph Bruzzesi

[email protected]

Sports Editor Cory Burrell

[email protected]

Science & Tech Editor Jennifer Zarate

[email protected]

Forum Co-EditorBen Turcea

[email protected]

Arts & Life Co-Editor Nicole Lopez-Isa

[email protected]

Editorial Staff

Photo Editor Shawn Kenney

[email protected]

Campus Liaison Christian Burne

[email protected]

CA M P U S EV E N TS : SE PT . 27- OC T . 3Thursday - Sept. 27

+RAINN DayJane Kopas Women’s Center, DeNaples Center 2nd Floor9 a.m. - 5 p.m.+IEEE Club MeetingLoyola Science Center, Room 23312 p.m. - 12:50 p.m.+An Evening With Anthony Aquan-AsseeDeNaples Center, McIlhenney Ballroom, 4074:30 p.m. - 6 p.m.+Scranton Club of Lehigh Valley: Dinner at the Hampton WindsHampton Winds, the Lehigh Valley’s Culinary School and Dining Room at Northampton County Community College 6:30 p.m.+Offi ce of Multicultural Affairs Hosts ‘Real Talk’DeNaples Center, McDonnell Room, 4057:30 p.m.

Wednesday - Oct. 3+Chaucer’s Chivalry: Knights and the Ladies Who Love ThemWeinberg Memorial Library, Room 3056 p.m. - 7:15 p.m.+Documentary ‘Sun Come Up’DeNaples Center, Room 4017 p.m.

Copy EditorMaria Cleary

[email protected]

Faith Editor Andrew Milewski

[email protected]

Arts & Life Co-Editor Joe Weitemeyer

[email protected]

Copy Editor Sheila Loesch

[email protected]

Forum Co-EditorDeanna Giorno

[email protected]

Editor-in-Chief Christina Scully

[email protected]

Managing Editor Timothy McCormick

[email protected]

CORRECTIONSThe staff of The Aquinas would like

to apologize for the following errors made in Vol. 86, Issue 2:

The writer of the article “Romney reveals econom-ic solutions” was incorrectly labeled as Brian Lopes.

The writer of the article was Daniel Massari.

Please send any corrections to [email protected]

To the campus community:

All of you have seen the events of Suicide Pre-vention Week being advertised and taking place on campus. As a university campus, the goals and missions of this week have an especially powerful effect on us.

Within the past week, however, they have be-come even more of a reality for many, especially for students who call Luzerne County their home.

According to The Citizens’ Voice, one of Luzerne County’s news sources, four teens were reported to have committed suicide this week. The teens who committed suicide ranged from ages 13 to 16.

We would like all members of The University community to keep these teens and their families in their prayers.

While tragic and heart-wrenching, these suicides should remind us of the overwhelming power that our words can have on others. It is our choice to decide what that impact will be. We are hopeful that these suicides remind the campus community to truly value the gift of life and encourage all to use their words to lift others up, never to bring them down.

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam,

Christina & Tim

Friday - Sept. 28+Catholic Studies Lecture - Peter Kreeft on Faith & ReasonDeNaples Center, Moskovitz Theater, 4013 p.m. - 5 p.m.+Loyola Science Center Dedication CeremonyLoyola Science Center4 p.m.+Family WeekendVarious5 p.m. - 10 p.m.+U of S Players Present: Prelude to a KissMcDade Center for Literary and Performing Arts, Royal Theater8 p.m.+Late Night at Scranton: Family BingoDionne Green9:15 p.m.

Saturday - Sept. 29+Medical Alumni Council MeetingMontrone Cafe8 a.m.+Royals 5KNay Aug Park7 a.m.+Family WeekendVarious9 a.m. - 9 p.m.+Friends of the Library Distinguished Author Award Honoring Jay PariniDeNaples Center, McIlhenney Ballroom, 4075 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.+Piano Recital featuring Adam BirnbaumHoulihan-McLean Center, Aula7:30 p.m. - 9 p.m.+U of S Players Present: Prelude to a KissMcDade Center for Literary and Performing Arts, Royal Theater8 p.m.+USPB Family Weekend Casino NightByron Complex, Gym8 p.m. - 11 p.m.+Pink Rugby GameSouth Side Sports Complex11 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Sunday - Sept. 30+Family WeekendVarious9 a.m. - 12 p.m.+U of S Players Present: Prelude to a KissMcDade Center for Literary and Performing Arts, Royal Theater2 p.m.

Monday - Oct. 1+The Taiwanese Film and Cultural FestivalDeNaples Center, Moskovitz Theater, 4015:30 p.m.+We Didn’t Need Dialog. We Had Faces! A Look at the American Silent FilmBrennan Hall, Pearn Auditorium, 2285:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.

Tuesday - Oct. 2+Kania Business Recruiting ExpoDeNaples Center, McIlhenney Ballroom, 407 A/B10 a.m. - 1 p.m.+Kania Business Recruiting Reception and DinnerRadisson Lackawanna Station Hotel4:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.+The Taiwanese Film and Cultural FestivalDeNaples Center, Moskovitz Theater, 4015:30 p.m.+Bullets, Ballots and Bombs: Making War and Peace in Ireland, 1798 to 1998Weinberg Memorial Library, Room 3056 p.m. - 7:15 p.m.

STATISTICS REPORTED BY BRIAN MCAVOYPat Mahoney sits down ev-

ery other Monday on the fifth floor of St. Thomas Hall and reads sections of The Times-Tribune aloud to an audience he rarely encounters.

Mahoney, a Lake Sheridan resident, is a volunteer for the Pell Radio Reading Service, which is a service provided through the Lackawanna Branch of the Pennsylvania Association for the Blind. Vol-unteers read local news sto-ries on the radio from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday so visually-impaired listeners can hear each day’s news.

The program began in 1981 at the organization’s head-quarters on Adams Avenue, but moved to The University in 2009. Its first broadcast on The University’s radio station, 99.5 WUSR, was about three years ago, on Sept. 21, 2009.

Outdated technology and lower funding facilitated the move, Paul Trama, the coordi-nator of the Pell Radio Read-ing Service, said.

Before the program’s move to The University, visually-impaired listeners had to use special receivers to listen to it each day, and it reached about 200 people. As a result of its affiliation with The University, the program is now broadcast on 99.5 FM, Comcast cable channel 21 and WUSRfm.com.

The change has allowed the program to reach a wider audience, including listeners who are not visually impaired.

“We’ve had such great re-sponses since we’ve been up

here. When we used to do it the old way, we kind of had the same people call, you’d get a little bit of input here and there. But here, not a week goes by when we don’t get some input on the broadcast,” Trama said.

WUSR broadcasts to 700 square miles of northeast Pennsylvania, including Lack-awanna and Luzerne Coun-ties, senior Gina Staller, the station’s manager, said.

The Pell Radio Reading Service includes local news stories, obituaries, TV listings, horoscopes, editorials, feature stories and major national news. Local interest stories and full-length articles set the Pell reading service apart from other radio or TV broad-casts, Trama said.

“When you’re hearing a TV or radio newscast, it’s edited down to headline form. When we read it, we read every-thing word-for-word, which is kind of nice,” Trama said.

Fifteen volunteers read for the program, as well as three or four substitute readers. University students can sign up to be substitute readers or can work controls during the broadcast.

One volunteer, Barbara Burkhouse, has read for the program for more than four years. The Scranton resident and retired Marywood Uni-versity professor likes that the Pell service provides local news to listeners.

“While there is so much radio and television news on the commercial channels or airwaves, such things as obit-uaries and very local politics and human interest stories of-

ten don’t get through. And so I like being able to share those,” Burkhouse said.

Readers also announce lo-cal events and activities dur-ing the program, including those of the Association for the Blind. The organization provides access to eye care and hosts events for about 500 visually impaired clients in the area, Trama said.

Radio reading services be-gan in the 1960s to give visu-ally-impaired people access to printed information. The popularity of these services has declined as technology has advanced and cable news networks have appeared.

Many reading programs around the country have ended, but the Pell program’s move to The University al-lowed it to survive in a limited format, Trama said. The move cut the full-day broadcast to two hours each day. Trama chose to keep the newspaper reading, which was the most popular segment of the pro-gram.

Mahoney, who has been a volunteer reader for more than six years, said that the experience has been reward-ing.

“I like the process of mak-ing the printed word under-standable when you’re read-ing out loud, and to get the gist of the story and to trans-fer that to the listening audi-ence,” Mahoney said.

Anyone looking for more information about the servic-es of the Lackawanna Branch of the Pennsylvania Associa-tion for the Blind can contact the organization at 570-342-7613.

After two robberies in-volving iPhones this semes-ter, University Police Chief Donald Bergmann said he hopes University students can learn from these two incidents.

“I hope that students read these community ad-visories, think about them and think about what they could do to stop that from potentially happening to them,” Bergmann said.

The first robbery oc-curred Aug. 27 around 9:45 p.m. A University employee was walking west down Mulberry Street past the Fitness Center when a male in dark clothing ran up and stole her iPhone from her hand. The iPhone also had a credit card and cash in-side.

The second incident oc-curred Sept. 14 at approxi-mately 3 a.m. A University student was walking east on Vine Street near the cor-ner of Clay Avenue when

her iPhone was stolen from her hand after she was pushed to the ground and kicked.

In both incidents, the victims were female and they had their iPhones out and visible at the time of the robbery, Bergmann said.

Bergmann said that he has had some conversa-tions with students who have told him that they in-tentionally use their phones when they are walking home alone because they

feel safer.“Personally, I think it’s

distracting. I think you need to be aware of your surroundings. When you seem like you’re focused on your phone conversation or texting, you don’t really know who might be walk-ing up on you,” Bergmann said.

While Scranton Police and University Police both patrol on and off campus, everyone needs to remem-ber that security and safety is a two-way street, Berg-

mann said.“Although we generally

feel safe, we need to re-member that this is an ur-ban environment. Crime is an unfortunate reality and everyone needs to take the shared responsibility of safety and use the proper precautions,” Bergmann said.

Chief Bergmann said these are some safety pre-cautions students can take:

•Stay in well-lit areas.•Stay our of neighbor-

hoods you’re not familiar

with.•Never walk alone. Find

friends to walk with.•If you are getting out of

class, walk together.•Be aware of your sur-

roundings.•Call 570-941-7888 for a

walking escort. •Utilize the escort van,

which runs Thursday, Fri-day and Saturday nights from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m.

•If you see something suspicious, turn and go the other way and call Univer-sity Police.

NEWS 3THE AQUINAS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

Student volunteers are urging The Univer-sity community to donate food to the Alice V. Leahy Food and Clothing Pantry that is running low on do-nations.

According to stu-dent coordinator Abby Yavorek, there are many people out of work who depend on food pantries to feed their families. The student-run volunteer group urges students to take action.

Fall is typically a rough period for donations be-cause in the summer there are many under-privileged families who move into Lackawanna County. Food becomes scarce without the help of organizations or students who would normally do-nate to the pantry during the academic year.

Debra Pellegrino, Ed.D.,

executive director of the Leahy Community Health & Family Center and dean of the Panuska College of Professional Studies, over-sees the students who volunteer at the center. According to Pellegrino, the students who volun-teer are working in accor-dance with The Univer-sity’s Jesuit tradition.

“The pantry was start-ed by a group of young ladies who saw they had money left over from their meals plans and used it to purchase bread, which they offered to the center and saw its des-perate need for food,” Pel-legrino said.

The students formed a committee to help out the community.

“I think our students are the best because they really are men and wom-en for others,” Pellegrino said. “These are our stu-dents and it was their idea.”

“I feel like in the four years of attending The University, the Ignatian values and setting the world on fire has been the motivation and in-spiration to give back to the community,” Yavorek said. “I love interacting with the people and get-ting different perspec-tives on the world.”

Donations can be dropped off at the Lea-hy Community Health & Family Center located on campus in the basement of McGurrin Hall. The pantry is in session two days a week, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mondays and 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays.

Clubs are encouraged to donate to the pantry as a community service proj-ect. Individual donations are always welcomed.

To donate non-perish-able products please con-tact student coordinator at [email protected].

University Police: be aware of your surroundingsCOLLEEN DAY

Staff Writer

MARIA CLEARYStaff Writer

JENNIFER ZARATEScience & Tech Editor

“TAXES” CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE

THE AqUINAS PHOTO / SHAWN KENNEYREV. PATRICK J. Conroy, S.J., chaplain to the U.S. House of Representatives, speaks on campus Wednesday night. Conroy is the 60th man to serve as U.S. House chaplain.

U.S. House chaplain speaks on campus

WUSR reads newspaper to the blind Allergy season arrives in Scranton

Leahy food pantry asks for donations

University student Kait Kolzow has spent that past few weeks reaching for more tissues than usual with this year’s expected allergy sea-son to be stronger than the last, according to a National Gallup-Healthways report.

Kolzow has been suffer-ing from allergies since she was a little girl, and says that they have become worse with age.

According to the report, 22.8 percent of Americans reported suffering from al-lergy symptoms this April, compared to 20.8 percent in April 2011 and 21.8 in April 2010.

In addition, the report suggests that allergy season may have actually come ear-lier this year, largely because the winter was so warm and because of the higher pollen

counts throughout the U.S.“My eyes are puffy, nose

stuffy, throat itchy, and I al-most always have a sinus headache,” Kolzow said. “It’s hard to cope with the aller-gies, but I just try to ignore as much of it as I can and get through my day.”

Allergy sufferers across the East are due for a strong ragweed season forecast, according to everyday HEALTH. Ragweed is the biggest allergy trigger in the fall, and ragweed pollen can be carried as far as 400 miles by the wind.

Warm weather and enough rain recently have set the stage for ragweed to grow and produce pollen ef-ficiently across the East.

“I haven’t visited wellness yet for my allergies, but I am seeing an allergist soon though,” Kolzow said. “For now I’m taking Sudafed for my allergies, and a inhaler for my asthma, which is en-

vironmentally induced.”According to Centers for

Disease Control and Preven-tion, millions of people suf-fer from allergies caused by everday exposures to agents such as dust mites, cat dan-der, and pollens.

“The worst part is that my allergies trigger my asthma, and this year I’ve had many more asthma attacks than normal because of my aller-gies,” Kolzow said. “Some-times it’s so bad I have trou-ble falling asleep because I’m stuffy and breathing is hard. If it’s a bad pollen day and my windows have been open I run the risk of having an asthma attack while I’m asleep.”

According to director of Student Health Services, Pat Popeck, the list of com-plaints that have come into the Wellness Center have not been allergy related symp-toms, rather for colds and viral illnesses.


“As a Catholic and Jesuit institution, The University of Scranton embraces its role as a key community and eco-nomic partner in the City and region.

“While the University rec-ognizes the financial chal-lenges facing the City, it views the parking tax ordi-nance as a clear violation of its tax exemption.

“We are confident that the University meets or exceeds all of the requirements for a charity in Pennsylvania. In defense of its tax exemption.

“In July, the University provided the City with a de-

tailed letter including all the relevant legal citations show-ing that a tax on parking the University provides to its students, faculty and staff is illegal. The City has failed to acknowledge that the new parking tax is not enforceable against the University, which has left the University with no option other than to seek a legal determination of its rights.

“The University’s decision to pursue legal action should not overshadow the signifi-cant contributions that it has made and continues to make to the City and the commu-

nity. The University’s pres-ence in the City creates jobs and provides a substantial economic benefit.

“The University voluntarily provides the City with a con-tribution of $175,000 annually, with gifts totaling more than $2.6 million since 1983.

“While we await a decla-ration from the Court, The University will continue to provide substantial econom-ic contributions to the City while it supports and initiates programs that benefit and en-rich the community at large.”

Phone calls to Atty. Hughes’ office were not returned.

Pat Mahoney sits down ev-ery other Monday on the fifth floor of St. Thomas Hall and reads sections of The Times-Tribune aloud to an audience he rarely encounters.

Mahoney, a Lake Sheridan resident, is a volunteer for the Pell Radio Reading Service, which is a service provided through the Lackawanna Branch of the Pennsylvania Association for the Blind. Vol-unteers read local news sto-ries on the radio from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday so visually-impaired listeners can hear each day’s news.

The program began in 1981 at the organization’s head-quarters on Adams Avenue, but moved to The University in 2009. Its first broadcast on The University’s radio station, 99.5 WUSR, was about three years ago, on Sept. 21, 2009.

Outdated technology and lower funding facilitated the move, Paul Trama, the coordi-nator of the Pell Radio Read-ing Service, said.

Before the program’s move to The University, visually-impaired listeners had to use special receivers to listen to it each day, and it reached about 200 people. As a result of its affiliation with The University, the program is now broadcast on 99.5 FM, Comcast cable channel 21 and WUSRfm.com.

The change has allowed the program to reach a wider audience, including listeners who are not visually impaired.

“We’ve had such great re-sponses since we’ve been up

here. When we used to do it the old way, we kind of had the same people call, you’d get a little bit of input here and there. But here, not a week goes by when we don’t get some input on the broadcast,” Trama said.

WUSR broadcasts to 700 square miles of northeast Pennsylvania, including Lack-awanna and Luzerne Coun-ties, senior Gina Staller, the station’s manager, said.

The Pell Radio Reading Service includes local news stories, obituaries, TV listings, horoscopes, editorials, feature stories and major national news. Local interest stories and full-length articles set the Pell reading service apart from other radio or TV broad-casts, Trama said.

“When you’re hearing a TV or radio newscast, it’s edited down to headline form. When we read it, we read every-thing word-for-word, which is kind of nice,” Trama said.

Fifteen volunteers read for the program, as well as three or four substitute readers. University students can sign up to be substitute readers or can work controls during the broadcast.

One volunteer, Barbara Burkhouse, has read for the program for more than four years. The Scranton resident and retired Marywood Uni-versity professor likes that the Pell service provides local news to listeners.

“While there is so much radio and television news on the commercial channels or airwaves, such things as obit-uaries and very local politics and human interest stories of-

ten don’t get through. And so I like being able to share those,” Burkhouse said.

Readers also announce lo-cal events and activities dur-ing the program, including those of the Association for the Blind. The organization provides access to eye care and hosts events for about 500 visually impaired clients in the area, Trama said.

Radio reading services be-gan in the 1960s to give visu-ally-impaired people access to printed information. The popularity of these services has declined as technology has advanced and cable news networks have appeared.

Many reading programs around the country have ended, but the Pell program’s move to The University al-lowed it to survive in a limited format, Trama said. The move cut the full-day broadcast to two hours each day. Trama chose to keep the newspaper reading, which was the most popular segment of the pro-gram.

Mahoney, who has been a volunteer reader for more than six years, said that the experience has been reward-ing.

“I like the process of mak-ing the printed word under-standable when you’re read-ing out loud, and to get the gist of the story and to trans-fer that to the listening audi-ence,” Mahoney said.

Anyone looking for more information about the servic-es of the Lackawanna Branch of the Pennsylvania Associa-tion for the Blind can contact the organization at 570-342-7613.

After two robberies in-volving iPhones this semes-ter, University Police Chief Donald Bergmann said he hopes University students can learn from these two incidents.

“I hope that students read these community ad-visories, think about them and think about what they could do to stop that from potentially happening to them,” Bergmann said.

The first robbery oc-curred Aug. 27 around 9:45 p.m. A University employee was walking west down Mulberry Street past the Fitness Center when a male in dark clothing ran up and stole her iPhone from her hand. The iPhone also had a credit card and cash in-side.

The second incident oc-curred Sept. 14 at approxi-mately 3 a.m. A University student was walking east on Vine Street near the cor-ner of Clay Avenue when

her iPhone was stolen from her hand after she was pushed to the ground and kicked.

In both incidents, the victims were female and they had their iPhones out and visible at the time of the robbery, Bergmann said.

Bergmann said that he has had some conversa-tions with students who have told him that they in-tentionally use their phones when they are walking home alone because they

feel safer.“Personally, I think it’s

distracting. I think you need to be aware of your surroundings. When you seem like you’re focused on your phone conversation or texting, you don’t really know who might be walk-ing up on you,” Bergmann said.

While Scranton Police and University Police both patrol on and off campus, everyone needs to remem-ber that security and safety is a two-way street, Berg-

mann said.“Although we generally

feel safe, we need to re-member that this is an ur-ban environment. Crime is an unfortunate reality and everyone needs to take the shared responsibility of safety and use the proper precautions,” Bergmann said.

Chief Bergmann said these are some safety pre-cautions students can take:

•Stay in well-lit areas.•Stay our of neighbor-

hoods you’re not familiar

with.•Never walk alone. Find

friends to walk with.•If you are getting out of

class, walk together.•Be aware of your sur-

roundings.•Call 570-941-7888 for a

walking escort. •Utilize the escort van,

which runs Thursday, Fri-day and Saturday nights from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m.

•If you see something suspicious, turn and go the other way and call Univer-sity Police.

NEWS 3THE AQUINAS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

Student volunteers are urging The Univer-sity community to donate food to the Alice V. Leahy Food and Clothing Pantry that is running low on do-nations.

According to stu-dent coordinator Abby Yavorek, there are many people out of work who depend on food pantries to feed their families. The student-run volunteer group urges students to take action.

Fall is typically a rough period for donations be-cause in the summer there are many under-privileged families who move into Lackawanna County. Food becomes scarce without the help of organizations or students who would normally do-nate to the pantry during the academic year.

Debra Pellegrino, Ed.D.,

executive director of the Leahy Community Health & Family Center and dean of the Panuska College of Professional Studies, over-sees the students who volunteer at the center. According to Pellegrino, the students who volun-teer are working in accor-dance with The Univer-sity’s Jesuit tradition.

“The pantry was start-ed by a group of young ladies who saw they had money left over from their meals plans and used it to purchase bread, which they offered to the center and saw its des-perate need for food,” Pel-legrino said.

The students formed a committee to help out the community.

“I think our students are the best because they really are men and wom-en for others,” Pellegrino said. “These are our stu-dents and it was their idea.”

“I feel like in the four years of attending The University, the Ignatian values and setting the world on fire has been the motivation and in-spiration to give back to the community,” Yavorek said. “I love interacting with the people and get-ting different perspec-tives on the world.”

Donations can be dropped off at the Lea-hy Community Health & Family Center located on campus in the basement of McGurrin Hall. The pantry is in session two days a week, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mondays and 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays.

Clubs are encouraged to donate to the pantry as a community service proj-ect. Individual donations are always welcomed.

To donate non-perish-able products please con-tact student coordinator at [email protected].

University Police: be aware of your surroundingsCOLLEEN DAY

Staff Writer

MARIA CLEARYStaff Writer


“TAXES” CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE

THE AqUINAS PHOTO / SHAWN KENNEYREV. PATRICK J. Conroy, S.J., chaplain to the U.S. House of Representatives, speaks on campus Wednesday night. Conroy is the 60th man to serve as U.S. House chaplain.

U.S. House chaplain speaks on campus

WUSR reads newspaper to the blind Allergy season arrives in Scranton

Leahy food pantry asks for donations

University student Kait Kolzow has spent that past few weeks reaching for more tissues than usual with this year’s expected allergy sea-son to be stronger than the last, according to a National Gallup-Healthways report.

Kolzow has been suffer-ing from allergies since she was a little girl, and says that they have become worse with age.

According to the report, 22.8 percent of Americans reported suffering from al-lergy symptoms this April, compared to 20.8 percent in April 2011 and 21.8 in April 2010.

In addition, the report suggests that allergy season may have actually come ear-lier this year, largely because the winter was so warm and because of the higher pollen

counts throughout the U.S.“My eyes are puffy, nose

stuffy, throat itchy, and I al-most always have a sinus headache,” Kolzow said. “It’s hard to cope with the aller-gies, but I just try to ignore as much of it as I can and get through my day.”

Allergy sufferers across the East are due for a strong ragweed season forecast, according to everyday HEALTH. Ragweed is the biggest allergy trigger in the fall, and ragweed pollen can be carried as far as 400 miles by the wind.

Warm weather and enough rain recently have set the stage for ragweed to grow and produce pollen ef-ficiently across the East.

“I haven’t visited wellness yet for my allergies, but I am seeing an allergist soon though,” Kolzow said. “For now I’m taking Sudafed for my allergies, and a inhaler for my asthma, which is en-

vironmentally induced.”According to Centers for

Disease Control and Preven-tion, millions of people suf-fer from allergies caused by everday exposures to agents such as dust mites, cat dan-der, and pollens.

“The worst part is that my allergies trigger my asthma, and this year I’ve had many more asthma attacks than normal because of my aller-gies,” Kolzow said. “Some-times it’s so bad I have trou-ble falling asleep because I’m stuffy and breathing is hard. If it’s a bad pollen day and my windows have been open I run the risk of having an asthma attack while I’m asleep.”

According to director of Student Health Services, Pat Popeck, the list of com-plaints that have come into the Wellness Center have not been allergy related symp-toms, rather for colds and viral illnesses.


“As a Catholic and Jesuit institution, The University of Scranton embraces its role as a key community and eco-nomic partner in the City and region.

“While the University rec-ognizes the financial chal-lenges facing the City, it views the parking tax ordi-nance as a clear violation of its tax exemption.

“We are confident that the University meets or exceeds all of the requirements for a charity in Pennsylvania. In defense of its tax exemption.

“In July, the University provided the City with a de-

tailed letter including all the relevant legal citations show-ing that a tax on parking the University provides to its students, faculty and staff is illegal. The City has failed to acknowledge that the new parking tax is not enforceable against the University, which has left the University with no option other than to seek a legal determination of its rights.

“The University’s decision to pursue legal action should not overshadow the signifi-cant contributions that it has made and continues to make to the City and the commu-

nity. The University’s pres-ence in the City creates jobs and provides a substantial economic benefit.

“The University voluntarily provides the City with a con-tribution of $175,000 annually, with gifts totaling more than $2.6 million since 1983.

“While we await a decla-ration from the Court, The University will continue to provide substantial econom-ic contributions to the City while it supports and initiates programs that benefit and en-rich the community at large.”

Phone calls to Atty. Hughes’ office were not returned.

5THE AQUINAS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

Students take break with furry friendsNEWS

The University’s annual Pet Therapy event occurred Tuesday on the Dionne Green. Dog owners were invited to bring their dogs to campus to help students forget about all of the work they have to do for a few hours. Students who attended Pet Therapy had to sign a waiver to play

with the dogs. Once the waiver was signed, students were allowed to give the dogs treats while they played with them. While at the event, all of the dogs were blessed by Rev. Ryan J. Maher, S.J., and were given medals of St. Francis of Assisi.

Pet Therapy is held in the fall and spring semesters, and more than 50 dogs come to campus each year. Employees are invited to bring their dogs to campus for the joy-fi lled, stress-free event.

The next Pet Therapy day will occur in April.

THE AqUINAS PHOTO / SHAWN KENNEYDAVID HOVEY holds his dog Lola as Peter Alexander and Caroline Dress pet her. Many students were glad to spend some time on the Dionne Green with all of the dogs.

THE AqUINAS PHOTO / SHAWN KENNEYREV. RYAN J. Maher, S.J., the founding exective director of the Jesuit Center at The University, stands with the pet owners, dogs and students to bless all of the dogs in attendance.

THE AqUINAS PHOTO / SHAWN KENNEYCHERYL KENYON of Printing Services sits with her dog Zoey on the Dionne Green. She was one of the employees who brought her dog to campus Tuesday.

THE AqUINAS PHOTO / SHAWN KENNEYCOOPER, ONE of the dogs that was at Pet Therapy, sits on the Dionne Green for a photograph. Cooper is just one of the many dogs that students played with on campus.

THE AqUINAS PHOTO / SHAWN KENNEYWARREN DOLAN offers Emma, one of the dogs at Pet Therapy, a treat. The dogs got to enjoy many treats given to them by University students.

4 THE AQUINAS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2012NEWS

People Profile: Psychologist Jessica Barber, Ph.D.Jessica M. Barber, Ph.D.,

was named a lecturer of psy-chology at The University for the 2012-2013 academic year. Dr. Barber is one of 12 new full-time faculty mem-bers.

The Aquinas: What are your qualifications?

Dr. Jessica Barber: I have a Ph.D in psychology from Vir-ginia Commonwealth Uni-versity, and I’ve been teach-ing for three or four years.

AQ: What courses do you teach and what is your teaching philosophy?

JB: I teach fundamentals of psychology, statistics in behavioral science and so-cial psychology. My overall philosophy is that psychol-ogy is such an applicable part of life, and I want my students to see that. I try to bring [the material] to life in the classroom.

AQ: What is your research area?

JB: I research attitude change and persuasion. I

have a lot of interest in po-litical attitudes and message framing.

AQ: What attracted you to The University?

JB: I’m originally from a small liberal arts school. I liked the department and how the school has a liberal arts type of feel. I enjoy the interaction with students and the one-on-one men-toring time. I also like that classes are not 300 people. Grad school was much big-ger.

AQ: How has the adjust-ment been to The Univer-sity?

JB: It’s been smooth. Ev-eryone has been so warm and welcoming. I’m com-ing from a larger university in Richmond, so the bigger adjustment will be to the weather.

AQ: What is your favorite thing about Scranton?

JB: I have to say the stu-dents. I enjoy being back in the classroom. I enjoy teach-ing. The students are inter-ested in the material, which makes it more fun.

Hill Section fi res investigated

‘Real Talk’ aims to change perceptions of minorities

TOM FOTIStaff Writer

THE AqUINAS PHOTO / SHAWN KENNEYJESSICA BARBER, Ph.D., is a new faculty member in the psychology department. Dr. Barber is one of 12 new faculty members who will be featured in the People Profi le section in the coming weeks.

Like anyone waking up, junior Chrissy Cerezo never anticipated hearing that there was a fire in her yard while she slept.

However, on the morning of Sept. 14, she listened as her neighbors described the po-tential threat

Cerezo lives with seven other girls on the 400 block of Taylor Avenue, right off of Mulberry Street. Their back-door opens up to a wooden, two-story deck with a lot to park cars and the edge of their yard, where the residents keep their garbage cans.

“It’s actually pretty crazy that someone started a fire in my backyard,” Cerezo said.

Cerezo’s house is one hit by a phantom arsonist, who has yet to be discovered but has left an impression. There have been several similar cases all along the Hill Sec-tion, where fires have been started.

Sean Flynn of the Scranton Fire Department was limited on comments because of the ongoing investigation. But he did say that these fires have not been random.

“When dealing with fire, there’s no such thing as ac-cidental,” Flynn said. “We are classifying these as incendi-ary.”

University Police Chief Donald Bergmann said there has been no consistency in the houses targeted, other than the incidents occurrin-gin the Hill Section.

The fires have been “pri-marily occurring between Vine Street and Mulberry Street,” Bergmann said. “They seem to start between 1:15 a.m. and 5 a.m.”

Bergmann said campus police already patrol the Hill Section in areas that have a majority of the students liv-ing there. But Bergmann said now they have “been focus-ing on ally ways and courts.”

“We anticipated once the community advisory went out that the media would pick up on it,” Bergmann said. “It helps by bringing at-tention to the issue.”

Bergmann said since the community advisory was is-sued on Sept. 14, there have been two more fires, increas-ing the total number of fires to eight. Despite the two most recent fires, Bergmann believes that awareness can

help.“You have to keep your

eye out,” Bergmann said, “and if you see somebody or something suspicious, you have to report it right away.”

Stephanie Adamec, the director of Off-Campus and Commuter Student Affairs, is also working with students to educate them on the impor-tance of eliminating combus-tible material outside their houses.

Police advise students who live off campus to remain vigilant, which in Cerezo’s case may have saved her yard from further damage.

Cerezo’s neighbors were the first to see the fire from their back porch.

“The fire department didn’t come,” Cerezo said, “my neighbors had to use the fire extinguisher in their house to put it out. But luck-ily, they quickly ran inside and did so.”

Cerezo and her house-mates are relieved that it never escalated into some-thing more.

“Our house has never been vandalized before,” Cerezo said. “Hopefully this won’t happen to too many more people.”

Ademola Giwa is just like you and me. The first year graduate student works hard during the week, and enjoys his free time whenever his busy schedule as a residential assistant and work study allow him.

Giwa, along with four other panelists, will take part in “Real Talk,” a pro-gram sponsored by the Office of Multicultural Af-fairs, at The Patrick and Margaret DeNaples Center in room 405 from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday. This is the first of two Real Talk discussions in the Fall 2012 semester.

This edition of Real Talk will center on the social perceptions of minor-ity men. The five panel-ists will field questions on stereotypical images and the complexities of racial identity.

In his past experiences at The University, Giwa said he and his friends had often discussed racial identity when they were undergrads, and he hopes all who attend will find that there is a misconcep-tion of African-Americans.

“Often times when peo-ple think of black people, they think of Lil’ Wayne or 50 Cent,” Giwa said. “Not many ever think of Obama or black political leaders or articulate black men.”

Paul Porter, Ph.D., direc-tor of Multicultural Affairs, wanted to put Real Talk on to help educate others about the concept of mi-nority men. Porter said he finds the town-hall type of discussions beneficial in understanding about dif-ferent cultures. He will also take part in the program as a member of the panel.

Porter believes the per-ceptions of minority men are complex because of the multitude of media outlets in today’s world.

“There’s a tendency to view minority men through media, movies, television and sports,” Por-ter said. “It creates a com-plex identity when Michael Vick is shown and then

Barack Obama. We have this multiplicity of images, and I think it’s important to have this conversation in the form of Real Talk to see the result of those im-ages and confusion.”

Porter said that the goal of the Office of Mul-ticultural Affairs is to cre-ate a culture of advocacy. Through these panel dis-cussions, Porter hopes conversations will move focuses beyond the sin-gular notion of race and create an environment where all people can be advocates for one another. He also hopes students in attendance will be able to see the results of different perceptions through the eyes of another.

University Police Chief and Director of Public Safety Donald Bergmann will also join the panel. Bergmann said he was open to working with Por-ter to get his input on how they could better address issues here at The Univer-sity.

One issue Bergmann faced was that students of color felt that they were being singled out as pos-sible suspects each time a community advisory was put out.

“That was concerning,” Bergmann said. “I think ambiguous, generic de-scriptions don’t contribute to preventing crime on campus, and I think they have a damaging effect on

perpetuating an unfavor-able view of black men. I think that’s what some of the conversations are go-ing to take place Thursday night.”

Bergmann hopes that all students who attend will leave with a good per-spective of law enforce-ment and University Po-lice. He said he believes in the importance of all stu-dents feeling comfortable approaching University Police regarding issues.

After discussions have ended, Giwa hopes a new perception of African-Americans will emerge. Giwa said he hopes per-ceptions will change to a more intellectual view of the black population.

The Scranton Fire Depart-ment responded to the De-Naples Center Wednesday after smoke filled the base-ment. This was the fire de-partment’s second call to the building within one week.

The incident caused the DeNaples Center to be evac-uated shortly before 5 p.m. Wednesday.

According to Scranton

Fire Department Assist. Chief Jim Floryshak, there was “a smoke condition in the basement.” The smoke then “traveled up the eleva-tor and tripped a detector at the penthouse of the eleva-tor shaft,” Floryshak said.

Floryshak said he was unsure of the source of the smoke.

Floryshak believes the smoke may have originated from the DeNaples Center’s

water heater. He noted that he does not believe the smoke originated from the same source it did during last week’s incident.

Shortly after the incident, University maintenance contacted an HVAC techni-cian to determine where the smoke came from.

Efforts to contact Univer-sity Police Chief Don Berg-mann were unsuccessful before press time.

JOE WEITEMEYERStaff Writer

TOM FOTIStaff Writer

The Weinberg Memorial Library is celebrating

its 20th anniversary this year. In recognition of

this milestone, the library is displaying a retro-

spective exhibit in the Library Commons. Called

“Twenty Years of the Weinberg Memorial Library,”

this exhibit will be on display throughout the fall

semester. The Library is also conducting a trivia

contest with opportunities to win prizes each

week. For more information, contact Elizabeth

Teets, special collections assistant at the Library.

Smoke in DeNaples summons Scranton F.D.CHRISTINA SCULLY

Editor-In-Chief

6 THE AQUINAS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2012FORUM

Editorial Board

Tim McCormickEditor-in-Chief

Deanna GiornoManaging Editor

Serving The University and

community since 1931Christina Scully

Forum EditorForumSuicide Prevention: ‘plans to give you hope’

I’m sure you have read or heard about the ongoing protests in the Middle East. I could bore you all day with all of the articles I’ve read on this topic, so I will give you the premise of the situation: a Californian man named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula made a low-budget, low-quality, anti-Islamic film ti-tled “The Innocence of Mus-lims,” and now Muslims in the Middle East are protest-ing with your standard “we hate America” riots.

According to Fox News, The major problem for Mus-lims is that the film depicts the prophet Muhammad as “a fraud, a womanizer and a child molester.” And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually agree with Fox on this one. From the trailers I have seen on YouTube, this description is pretty spot-on. Honestly, nothing else you

read in this article is going to be more surprising than Fox reporting facts, so I won’t hold it against you if you stop reading now.

These protestors have been indoctrinated with a false sense of entitlement. They think that they are spe-cial and are justified in act-ing out violently by ravaging city streets, destroying prop-erty and even killing people. I want you to pause and think about that for a second. These protestors have ended lives and are preaching hate toward an entire country be-cause they didn’t like a movie that one guy made because he doesn’t like what they believe. There is absolutely nothing that justifies killing an individual over a poorly-made movie. However, relig-ius beliefs have been accept-able reasons to kill people for saying something believers don’t like (no one expects the Spanish Inquisition).

Does the filmmaker have

artistic freedom? Absolutely. The media is reporting that he created the film to in-tentionally incite protests. Still, could it not just be his interpretation of the Quran? Books are made into movies all the time. Just because a large population regards this book as holy, doesn’t mean believers can kill people in the wake of a man’s artistic freedom (as poor as his art may be). Mel Gibson did it with “The Bible.” Sure, the film was entirely closer to the actual story of Jesus in “The Bible,”: but that was his in-terpretation of the text —just as the film “The Innocence of Muslims” is the filmmaker’s interpretation of the Quran. It’s a movie – if you don’t like it, then you don’t watch it. If you thought it was bad, you tell your friends it was bad. If you have a problem with in-accuracies in the story, then you point them out. But you don’t kill people because of these things, because you be-

lieve your deity says that you should. I am all for tolerance and a peaceful coexistence, but it is unbearably hard to be tolerant when there are people, like those violently protesting the film, who get offended at the smallest thing and retaliate with mer-ciless violence and an incon-sideration for human life.

The United States has since charged Nakoula with disrupting international peace in regard to the video. But is America just scape-goating the filmmaker and those involved with its production? The U.S. uses drones in the Middle East to kill specific people that the administration has deemed dangerous to our national security. The problem is that these drones are not as pre-cise as they are claimed to be, and usually end up killing civilians in an explosion in-tended to eliminate a target. An article from CNN pub-lished Tuesday states, “U.S.

drone strikes in Pakistan have killed far more people than the United States has acknowledged, have trau-matized innocent residents and largely been ineffective, according to a new study released Tuesday.” The study referred to in the article is from Stanford Law School and New York University’s School of Law, and it states that “the number of ‘high-level’ targets killed as a per-centage of total casualties is about two percent.”

But two percent of what? According to the Stanford/NYU study, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which is an independent organization based at City University in London, re-ports the following: from June 2004 to September 2012 around 2,562 to 3,325 people were killed in drone strikes in Pakistan. Between 474 and 881 of them were civilians, and around 176 of those civilian were chil-

dren. The drone strikes also injured between 1,228 and 1,362 people. Why isn’t the previous or current admin-istration being charged with disrupting international peace? One guy makes a video and everyone is after him, but our administration orders drone strikes that end in the deaths of civil-ians in a delusional utilitar-ian morality and everything is just dandy and justified. After years of killing inno-cent people in Pakistan, it shouldn’t be surprising that its residents protest America at some point. Is our admin-istration just using the video and those who made it as scapegoats to cover up the perpetual violence they in-cite in the Middle East?

If you haven’t grasped the sad reality of either situation by now, I don’t know what is left to say. All I can tell you to do is think about what I have just presented. Question ev-erything. Love, John.

Ben Turcea Forum Editor

Anti-America protests continue in Libya

There are so many ways I could’ve penned this article. I could’ve looked online at the suicide rate over the past 10 years. I could’ve watched a clip or two and reflected upon what I had seen. Instead, I’m going to offer a firsthand perspective on what suicide prevention means to me, and how necessary it really is.

I’m not going to pretend the relationship between my father and me was one of those you saw on TV or read in a story. It was by no means a fairy tale story. It was a rela-tionship clouded by a schism of resentment, fear and de-spair. But no matter what sort of problems cultivated our situation, it does not take away from the seriousness of what happened.

He suffered from depres-sion, which is a pit of dark-ness that millions of people suffer from around the world. If untreated, it is a catalyst that leads to the unthink-able, the unspeakable and the often-overlooked result of suicide.

The biggest mistake we can make is to overlook sui-

cide. We often put it out of our realm of imagination, saying that “he or she is not capable of doing something like this.” With something as serious as depression, unfor-tunately, anyone is capable of these thoughts.

The questions we ask are numerous. How and why did this happen? Why didn’t I do enough? The blame is errati-cally placed in the wrong di-rection. You blame yourself, a job or negative influences surrounding the person. You

blame that person for being selfish, and, in some instanc-es, you blame God. These were the questions I asked, and I looked at myself in the mirror and pointed the blame directly back into that reflec-tion. I never thought that someone I knew could do this. But cutting through my irrational thoughts, I came to grips with the fact that depression was a serious dis-ease, capable of swallowing up anyone into a dark, dark place.

The list of factors that can weigh into depression and thoughts of suicide is end-less. These people feel an array of emotions from help-lessness to loneliness. Sui-cide prevention starts with recognizing these symptoms and changing our behavior toward those who feel them. Take note of drastic changes of behavior, such as shifting from upbeat to melancholy, loss of appetite and signs of sleep deprivation. Even if these signs are not visible,

showing someone that you care and are there for them can help them move one step away from the ledge.

Prevention means rec-ognizing that suicide is a very real possibility. Preven-tion means getting help for those who show obvious signs, even if they may ob-ject. Prevention means being alert to what is happening in someone’s life that might trigger depression or suicidal thoughts, even if the obvious signs aren’t there. Prevention

means being there for some-one, no matter how grave the situation may be.

To those who feel these thoughts, know that there are people out there who care and love you. Know that there is always a way. Know that the pit is never bottomless, and darkness always gets brighter. Know that there are people on this earth who cannot bear to see you go, knowing that they could’ve done more to pre-vent it from happening. And know, most importantly, that God is always on your side, no matter what, and that he has “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jer-emiah 29:11).

Tuesday marked three years since the passing of my father, and the wounds for my family are by no means healed. They are still as fresh as the day they were first opened. I didn’t write this as a way to get pity or a pat on the back. I wrote this as a way to rally the forces, to make everyone aware of how important suicide prevention really is, and to tell you what you can do to stop it from happening.

THE AqUINAS PHOTO / SHAWN KENNEYSEPT. 24 THROUGH Friday is Suicide Prevention Week, and the program Rachel’s Challenge is meant to em-phasize positivity through all aspects of life.

DANIEL GLEASONStaff Writer

Dear Editor,When reading “Students

speak out for and against Chick-fil-A” in the 9/13/12 issue of The Aquinas, I was saddened that once again we see people finding it nec-essary to take sides against each other. Yes, each of us should stand up for truth and justice, but God’s com-mandment to “love our neighbor” calls us to be ac-

cepting of those who hold opinions or beliefs that are different from our own.

I was fortunate to have had the opportunity to go on a trip last year to Medjugor-je, located in Bosnia and Her-zegovina, which is a place that has drawn millions of visitors over the past thirty years from all over the world. People of all nationalities, re-ligions and beliefs find there

the love and acceptance they yearn for in their daily lives. The concept of a “minority” group seeking attention and acceptance does not exist in this wonderful place. As you walk the grounds, you hear different languages spo-ken all around you but the abundant smiles and caring gestures leave no one feeling excluded.

Most visitors to Medju-

gorje share a love of God and devotion to His Mother Mary. They believe to be true the reports that the Blessed Mother has been appear-ing to a group of visionaries since 1981. Mary’s messages to the visionaries speak of the profound Love that God has for each of His children, the need for conversion, and the need to seek God’s peace within and then sharing that

peace with others, with-out exception. The tone of the messages is clearly that of a loving Mother guiding and reassuring her children. When one of the visionaries asked the Blessed Mother which people (religion) are considered her children, Mary responded, “All people are my children.”

At those moments when we are tempted to judge or

correct another, we should pause and reflect on how that person “on the other side” is loved just as much as we are by our God, the Creator of all, and our dear Mother in heaven.

Are these confrontations really necessary?

Prof. Maria Englot, World Languages and Culture De-partment

JOHN NIEMIECStaff Writer

Letter to the Editor: Response to Chick-fil-A

The news that Presi-dent Obama and his ad-ministration failed to hold talks with Israeli officials during the re-cent United Nations Gen-eral Assembly comes at a time when relations between the two coun-tries has been weakened over the Iranian question. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been urging world lead-ers, particularly Obama, to engage in pre-emptive strikes on Iran in order to end the country’s nuclear program.

These reports have emerged amidst growing concerns that the Iranian regime is in advanced stages of developing nu-clear weapons. Although most countries agree that preventing Iran from de-veloping nuclear weap-ons is of the utmost importance, a resort to violence can only be justi-fied when all other means have been exhausted.

A November 2011 Unit-ed Nations report provid-ed substantive evidence that “Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device.” In addi-tion, the United Nations has claimed that Iran is

moving closer to becom-ing capable of producing nuclear weapons. Despite this, the Iranian regime has been adamant from the outset that its nuclear aspirations are strictly peaceful. Iran, like all states, has the right to produce nuclear energy under the Non-Prolifera-tion Treaty.

A pre-emptive attack on Iran would merely ex-acerbate the present situ-ation and undermine any efforts that have been made so far. During his State of the Union address in January, Obama stated that, in relation to pre-venting Iran from devel-oping a nuclear weapon, he “will take no options off the table to achieve that goal.” The aggres-sive tone emanating from Western countries and the military preparations that Israel has undertaken to launch an attack on Iran merely increase support for a regime that relies heavily on hostility to-wards the United States.

Both the U.S. and the European Union have in-troduced a number of sanctions on Iran in an effort to stifle its nuclear ambitions. The promised EU embargo on Iranian oil that came into force in July has helped damage the Iranian economy. Fur-

thermore, the country’s currency has suffered a substantial devaluation and credit has been cut off from any reputable international bank. The introduction of similar sanctions will force the Iranian regime to engage in meaningful negotia-tions.

Further evidence to support the claim that the use of violence must be a last resort can be found in a recent interview with Meir Dagan, a former

director of the Mossad, which is the Israeli equiv-alent of the CIA. Dagan stated that an attack on Iran now would be disas-trous and would merely aggravate the current situation. Both China and Russia have called on ma-jor international players, including Israel, to engage in diplomatic efforts.

Diplomacy has proven successful in the past. During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, a period in which the outbreak of

nuclear war was quite possible, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. came together behind the scenes and ultimately averted what could have been the most devastating war in his-tory.

Diplomatic endeavours must be explored in order to avoid a calamitous out-break of war. Given the turbulent period that the region is currently expe-riencing, the case for di-plomacy is all the more evident.

7THE AQUINAS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2012 FORUM

The content of The Aquinas is the responsibility of the Administrati ve Staff and does not necessarily refl ect the views of The University, its staff or faculty. The University adheres to the principle of responsible freedom of expression for its student editors.All lett ers become the property of The Aquinas and will be considered for both print and online editi ons unless the writer explicitly states otherwise. The Aquinas will not print anonymous or pseudo-anymous lett ers, except in unique circumstances. Lett ers will only be edited for style.

Forum Policy

What cause do you think The

University should be more involved in?

CARIANN VIALVA CAMPUS POLLSTER

COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONSSECRETARY OF State Hillary Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netan-yahu pose for a picture together in 2009 at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.

“The Big Brother Big Sister organization.”

Cristina Pontoriero

Class of 2013

“I think we should get more involved in the aniti-bully or-ganizations.”

Alyssa Caucci Class of 2016

Kat DiGiovanne Class of 2014

“I think we should work with the ‘Slut Walk’. It’s where girls that have been raped march in the clothes they were wear-ing when they were raped to protest the excuse, ‘they were asking for it.’”

“I think The University should get involved with the Progeria Foundation.”

Jaime EichvaldsClass of 2015

Israel seeks American support for Iran intervention

Hobby Lobby resists contraception mandate

ÉINDE Ó FATHAIGH Forum Correspondent

Hobby Lobby became the 28th company to file suit against President Obama’s contraception mandate in September. With 22,500 employ-ees and more than 500 stores in 41 states, Hob-by Lobby has become the largest business to legally resist the man-date — which requires all employers, regard-less of moral beliefs, to purchase contraception, abortion and steriliza-tion coverage, without co-pay, for all of their employees. Companies can face up to $1.3 mil-lion in fines for every day that they refuse to abide by the bill.

“By being required to make a choice between sacrificing our faith or paying millions of dollars in fines, we es-sentially must choose which poison pill to

swallow,” David Green, Hobby Lobby’s founder and CEO, said.

Companies claim that Obama’s projected con-traception coverage bill, which went into effect Aug. 1, drastically in-fringes upon religious freedom, the clause for which Hobby Lobby is filing its law suit. Our founding fathers con-sidered religious free-dom so important that they included it in the First Amendment. Em-ployers who morally op-pose abortion and other forms of birth control, including religious or-ganizations that preach against such methods of contraception, are forced to pay for prac-tices which violate their values. According to the First Amendment, religious freedom has always been honored in this country. Why should that change now?

Of course, the Obama

administration endeav-ors to conceal the ille-gality of such a mandate by negotiating its “reli-gious employer exemp-tion,” which applies to religious organizations which only serve and hire those of their own faith. Sounds fair, right? Not exactly. Most reli-gious hospitals, schools and charity organiza-tions hire and serve people of other faiths and thus would not fall under the exemption.

“Even Jesus and His disciples,” notes Catho-lic Charities USA’s presi-dent, Reverend Larry Snyder, “would not qual-ify for the exemption in that case, because they were committed to serve those of other faiths.”

Religion aside, anoth-er reason why Obama’s contraception mandate should be revoked is because it is simply un-necessary. Many argue

that without the bill, women would not have proper access to birth control. This, of course, is completely invalid be-cause birth control is al-ready freely available to women. Most states al-low minors to purchase any over-the-counter contraceptives without parental consent. Em-ployers should not be forced to cover their costs when they are so readily available. More-over, there are so many other important health necessities that are not covered by employers. Multivitamins, antibi-otics, a cast or chemo-therapy are not covered, and yet are all exceed-ingly important to the health of both men and women. So why should the government choose to mandate insurance for such controversial practices when they are not any more important than any other form of

uncovered healthcare?Birth control, includ-

ing abortion, is clearly a very controversial subject, and is regularly debated at both ends of the political spec-trum. How could the government make such a single-sided decision and not expect rebuttal from companies such as Hobby Lobby and the 27 others which are filing suit? It seems as though the government is removing the voice of the “Church” from “Sep-aration of Church and State.” In doing so, the Obama administration is clearly denying religious and moral freedom to those who oppose abor-tion, sterilization and contraception, therefore making this bill first and foremost a violation of religious freedom, and rendering it remarkably unconstitutional. For these reasons, it should not be tolerated.

SARAH MUELLERForum Correspondent

Interested in writing for The Forum?Contact: [email protected]

Arts & Life Arts & Life EditorsNicole Lopez-Isa

Joseph Weitemeyer

“Jesus Christ.”

Ryan DowdSenior, Staten Island, N.Y.

“Gandhi.”

Billy Thomsen Senior, Bethlehem

“Matt Damon.”

Lee MolitorisSenior, Plains

“My mom and dad.”

Bobby GilroySophomore, Scranton

8

Download of the Week

Players premiere first show of the season

Mumford & Sons releases new CD

“Night Feelings”

by Man

OverboardMan Overboard is a

pop-punk band from New Jersey that was formed in 2008. Since its formation, it has released two full-length albums as well as two EPs. The band takes inspiration from acts such as Taking Back Sun-day and Blink-182 and is well-known for its motto, “Defend Pop-Punk.”

“Night Feelings” is a track off the band’s self-titled album that was re-leased in September 2011. It contains everything that a decent pop-punk song requires: a catchy tune, relatable lyrics and vocals and harmonies that overlap perfectly.

The band is current-ly on tour on the east coast with the band Ma-jor League, and all of its works can be purchased on iTunes.

“I look up to any women who Ju Jitsu, especially

Kyra Gracie, a blackbelt. Inspiring.”

Jess PapiFreshman, Moosic

“My mother and father.”

Hayden StricklandSophomore, Scranton

Campus Comment: Who do you look up to as a role model?

THE AQUINAS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

Emerging suddenly from what many have labeled the “West London folk scene,” Mumford & Sons has come a long way from the first EP the band recorded shortly af-ter its formation in 2007. The band toured extensively in small clubs around the U.K. and U.S. before releasing its debut album “Sigh No More” in 2009. The album reached number one in Ireland, num-ber two in the U.K. and the U.S. Billboard 200 chart. Mumford & Sons increased in popularity throughout 2010 and was even nominated for two Grammies.

Now the band, comprised of Marcus Mumford, Ben Lovett, “Country” Winston Marshall and Ted Dwane, has released its much-an-ticipated sophomore effort, “Babel.” Fans of the band’s unique sound will be relieved to know that this follow-up bears much similarity to its past releases, while also no-ticeably evolving and chang-ing in the best of ways.

Although most bands to-day release albums with a mere 10 tracks to placate the listener, Mumford & Sons has

cultivated a 12-song album, which is one of the most no-table elements of “Babel.” The deluxe edition includes bonus

tracks to make for a total of 15 tracks.

The title track is the opener and instantly grabs the listen-er’s attention with the group’s trademark banjo and acoustic guitar combination. It leads into a song that the band has been playing at most of its concerts for the past few months, “Whispers in the Dark.” This song is powered with more banjo and then leads into the first single from the album, “I Will Wait.” “I Will Wait” is an anthem, with strong, chanted vocals and the addition of blasting horns.

Track four is the more somber “Holland Road,” a song with a message about believing in yourself. After that comes “Ghosts That We

Knew,” an almost melancholic tune which is reflective in its lyrics. It is the opposite of its following track, “Lover of the Light,” which is the song that the band has taken to per-forming as its opener for its most recent shows.

Mumford & Sons repeats the key word in back-to-back titles with the next track, “Lov-er’s Eyes.” This particular song features an accordion, lyrics with an almost overwhelming sense of imagery and plenty of vocal harmonies. “Remind-er,” which is only two minutes and four seconds long, is the shortest track on the album and laments about lost love.

The band takes a turn with the song “Hopeless Wander-er,” offering more electric gui-tar than it has ever had before and combining all-out rock with its standard country-style sound. It makes way for the dark and angry “Broken Crown,” which is complete with an explitive.

The final two tracks are the perfect closers for the album. “Below My Feet” flaunts more electric guitar and could eas-ily be the album ender, if not for “Not With Haste,” which is filled with lyrics that suggest the band’s members are go-ing to continue the way they have been despite what any critics may say (“This ain’t no sham / I am what I am”).

“Babel” is one of those rare albums that flows marvelous-ly when listened to as a whole, yet each individual song can still thrive on its own. The lis-tener will be drawn in by any track, quiet or loud, long or short.

The standard and deluxe versions of “Babel” can be found on iTunes as of Sept. 26. Visit mumfordandsons.com for more information.

SHANNON GIOELLOStaff Writer

COURTESY OF MYSPACE‘BABEL,’ MUMFORD & Son’s second album, was released Wednesday. It features 12 songs on the regular album and 15 on the deluxe edition.

‘Prelude to a Kiss’ is set to open this weekend starting 8 p.m. Friday. It continues 8 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. It will also be show-ing the following weekend at the same times. Prices range from $10 for general admission to $7 for students, faculty, staff and senior citizens. To reserve tickets, visit The Players’ website at http://uofsplay-ers.wufoo.com/forms/reser-vations/. The photo to the left dis-plays three members of the cast, including Kiley Lotz, Cillian Byrne and Camille Reinecke. THE AqUINAS PHOTO / EMMA BLACK

THE AQUINAS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2012 9

The Tuesday night thriller “Sons of Anarchy” has in-trigued many Scranton stu-dents and caused them to put down their textbooks and tune into FX’s new high-est-rated series. Created by Kurt Sutter, the outlaw mo-torcycle gang representing the fictional town of Charm-ing, located in the central valley of northern California, has many viewers glued to the television by portraying guns, motorcycles, death, sexual situations and crimi-nal activity.

The show’s core lies with Jackson “Jax” Teller (Charlie Hunnam). Jax was once the club’s vice president, but is now questioning the club as a whole along with the life-style of an outlaw motorcy-cle elite. He is now a married man and the father of two beautiful sons, and he real-izes the responsibility he has with his own life rather than the Sons of Anarchy motor-cycle club. His wife, Tara (Maggie Siff) is a doctor at the local hospital and is very weary of the motorcycles club’s dangerous antics, the strenuous professional job and her worries about their two sons and being married

to a motorcycle outlaw have made life hard. Jax begins to realize the severity of his situation after a rival gang called the Niners burned the daughter of Alex “Tig” Trag-er (Kim Coates) alive while Trager was chained up and forced to watch the horrific sight.

In the fifth season, Jax, now the president of Sons of Anarchy, is battling between leaving the gang to protect his own life or following through with the gang’s vi-cious need for retribution of the Niners. Jax is faced with making the responsible deci-sion to turn himself in to the police on charges of capital murder. Jax seems confident the CIA will get him out of prison, so he decides to turn himself in to protect himself and the club from further al-tercations with the Niners.

The next episode depicts Jax, and two other gang members, Tig and Opie, go-ing to prison. The episode will show what type of pro-tection the Sons get in prison and what type of leader Jax is to the club. Turning them-selves in was the first execu-tive decision Jax has made as president of the club. The previous president, Clay, was voted off after admitting to killing Opie’s father. The only reason Clay is still alive is be-

cause of the CIAs control of sons. Jax is the only character who talks with the undercov-er CIA agents and is follow-ing strict orders not to put a well-deserved bullet in Clay’s head.

This creates conflict be-tween Jax and his long time best friend, Opie because Opie wants nothing more than to kill Clay for what he had confessed to doing. Once Opie realized that Jax was not going to let him avenge his father’s death, he quit the Sons of Anarchy.

However, after Opie real-ized Jax and Tig were going to prison, he drives to the club house where Jax and Tig were going to turn them-selves in and punched the sheriff in the face to signify his loyalty to the club. Opie did this because he was wor-ried about the protection of Jax and Tig during their time in prison and wanted to make sure he was there to help protect his broth-ers. Although upset with the club’s decision to keep Clay alive, his actions show that he is loyal to his brothers of the Sons of Anarchy. The next episode will show how protected the Sons will be protected in prison and how the club outside of prison will hold up with no established president.

RYAN KELLYArts & Life Correspondent

A great deal has hap-pened since 2005, especially in the lives of physicians at Seattle’s Grace Hospital. Af-ter an already very success-ful run of eight seasons, the hit show “Grey’s Anatomy” will be beginning its ninth season today.

Many have watched the beloved Meredith Grey gradually evolve into a doc-tor. She began as a surgical intern and completed her residency throughout the seasons. Somewhere along the way, fellow surgeons be-came family and the hospi-tal became a home.

The short breaks in te-diously long days served as plenty of time for big drama. Meredith met her partner in crime, Yang, as well as many other friends while serving her intern-ship. These friendships seem to not only save lives in the O.R., but also save the people in the relationships. Meredith’s relationship with Derek Shepherd, origi-nally the untouchable “Mc-

Dreamy,” developed into a marriage. This plot twist and others, signatures of the ABC show, have managed to keep viewers on their toes.

After a shocking season eight finale, “Grey’s Anato-my” is back, and plenty of fans will be tuning in. View-ers are anticipating answers to the open questions of last season. The series ended with an unexpected plane crash, which occurred just as the characters’ lives seemed to be in order. Peace did not settle for long and audienc-es are wondering one thing: who will survive?

The show’s plot has been built up for years, yet maintains room for new excitement. Many feel close to the characters after watching them grow into who they are and build the

families they have. In ev-ery episode a lesson is to be learned about life, love and hard work. A few things can even be absorbed about biology. It is no wonder that ABC has managed to keep such a large fan base for so many seasons.

The audience of “Grey’s Anatomy” is more intrigued than ever as the show re-turns in the midst of trage-dy. Where the doctors’ lives will go from here is unpre-dictable.

Love stories, growing ca-reers, family dramas and a lot of blood have all led up to a crash that truly changes everything. Much can hap-pen in eight seasons, and indeed it has. With the start of season nine, there is even more drama to unfold.

‘Grey’s Anatomy’ returns with drama ALLISON ZEEDYK

Arts & Life Correspondent

‘Nemo’ released in a new dimension

“My older cousin and uncle.”

Nick D’AndreaJunior, Moscow

“Tabatha Coffey.”

Shannon TierneyJunior, Cranford, N.J.

“Audrey Hepburn.”

Danielle MonacoJunior, Long Island, N.Y.

“My mom.”

Connie Butt acciFreshman, Scranton

“My parents.”

Kelly ConlanJunior, Highland Mills, N.Y.

Picture yourself as a scuba diver in the mid-dle of a coral reef: col-orful fish swimming happily along, the soft touch of the ocean floor and the gentle swaying of the anemones. Now you can experience that with “Finding Nemo 3D.” This exciting version of the original movie we all know and love became so magical with the sim-ple addition of a pair of glasses.

As soon as Nemo swims away from home, the real action begins. On Marlin’s

desperate search to save his only son, he encoun-ters several setbacks. If you want to get up close and personal with sharks, like Bruce, this movie is the one for you. Giant sharks on a frantic search for blood, bombs that detonate and even a con-fused and carefree Dory in the midst of all this ex-citement are the perfect recipe for a good action scene and an adrenaline rush.

One of the most vivid displays of the movie was the pivotal point when Marlin meets Crush on the East Australian Current. The swirl of lovely shades of blue, bubbles popping

and floating before your eyes and an adorable set of turtles can put anyone in a good mood. And who doesn’t love the crazy seagulls that are always in search of food, scream-ing, “Mine! Mine!”? Hold on to your popcorn, be-cause they may be com-ing for your snacks next.

I highly recommend seeing this movie because it will not only put you in good spirits, but you’ll feel like you have taken your own sea adventure along the way. A friendly piece of advice: if you are going to dinner before or after you watch this, re-member, “Fish are friends, not food!”

AMANDA KUPTSOWArts & Life Correspondent

TV Review: Sons of Anarchy

Loyola Science Center, Commons EntranceReception & tours will follow

Rain location – Loyola Science Center, First Floor

Please Join Us for theDEDICATION CEREMONY

for theLOYOLA SCIENCE CENTER

Friday, September 28 • 4:00 p.m.

Visit scranton.edu/LSCcelebration for information on more events throughout the semester.

Commemorative T-shirts available to the first 300 Guests

COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS‘GREY’S ANATOMY’ returns tonight on ABC.

Want to write for Arts & Life?Contact Nicole Lopez-Isa

[email protected]

Joe [email protected]

“I think that would be my sister.”

Ashley MajernickFreshman, Scranton

- CARIANN VIALVA, CAMPUS POLLSTER

The world may not be ending in 2012, but econom-ic and political turmoil are currently ruling billions of people. The United States is pursuing quantitative easing, approaching a fiscal cliff, and is approaching a pivotal election. Addition-ally, Middle East conflict is on the rise again as anti-American protests shake cities around the world. The U.S has taken an ag-gressive stance on Iranian nuclear production, which has developed uncertainty among commodity inves-tors. In addition, riots have broken out across Spain, Greece, and other strug-gling European nations. Economies across the globe are stressed by the global chaos.

The upcoming election bears heavy weight on the economy. While both presi-dential candidates present in-depth economic plans, the U.S may be “testing the waters.” Many economists and other financial profes-sionals such have called quantitative easing 3 things like, “the largest gamble in economic history”. While the monthly purchase of $40 billion worth of toxic sub-prime mortgage in-struments will clean up

banks balance sheets, it will expand the Federal Re-serve’s. Some Fed members publicly opposed QE3 and some said it was called to early. Some speculators have claimed that even if the flow of money in the economy increases employ-ment and consumer wealth, the U.S may face a “liquid-ity trap”. During bad times, even under decreased in-terest rates and increased employment, many people choose to hold their earn-ings in cash. Rather than

buy investments which, in volatile markets, can lose substantial value, cash is liquid. This lack of invest-ment may slow the actual growth of the economy ver-sus the predicted.

The U.S faces a possible oil crisis as Middle-East conflicts arise. An anti-Is-lamic news video wrongly attributed to Americans caused riots in several Mid-dle Eastern countries. The U.S continues to pursue interests in Iran as fear of the development of nuclear

weapons continues. A con-flict between the U.S and Iran could cause a spike in global oil prices.

European riots have spread and are appearing to get worse at an alarm-ing rate. Greece’s economy is still in devastating shape. According to several sourc-es such as Bloomberg, the Greek government plans to cut over $14 billion worth of pension and payroll cuts. Their unemployment is over 20 percent and the job cre-ation prospects are dismal.

The recessionary process in their business cycle is ex-pected to be much greater in length compared to that of the U.S. Austerity or cut-backs in standard of living will continue to cause back-lash for months to come.

Asian commerce has seen some fluctuation in recent weeks as disagree-ments between the Chinese and Japanese heat up. China and Japan have been fight-ing for years over an Is-land that both nations both claim the rights too. After

meeting recently, Chinese and Japanese officials could not come to terms. Sources claimed military action is not being pursued by ei-ther nation. Japanese air-line companies got crushed when over 40,000 flights were cancelled due to anti-Japanese protests in China. Many Japanese companies in China have their workers striking and are temporarily shutting down production.

The world’s economy is shaky to say the least. Elec-tions, monetary policy deci-sions, austerity, and power disputes are at the helm of the plight of millions of people. Once civilized na-tions are now experiencing never before seen backlash. Political leaders need to show principal. More im-portantly, leaders need to show prudence.

In his ethics class, Dr. Duane Armitage summa-rized work of Aristotle on principle and prudence, “…it’s not just about doing the right thing for Aristotle. It’s about doing the right thing, at the right place, in the right moment, at the right time. That includes pursuing a principle.” Po-litical leaders need to be as prudent as possible during these times.

While their party’s inter-ests may be at stake, so are the lives and standards of living for millions of people.

THE AQUINAS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER, 27, 2012 10

Business Joseph Bruzzesi

Business Editor

JOSEPH BRUZZESIBusiness Editor

Global environment creates unstable economics

Apple Inc., the worlds largest publicly traded company has released the highly anticipated iPhone 5 which sold out during its first week of sales. Apple plans on delivering the iPhone 5 to waiting con-sumers as soon as possi-ble. The company also has plans to release Apple TV and possibility of a mini iPad. Talks of a $1000 price target have been linger-ing, but what will it take in order for this to happen? Will Apple T.V. be the next big thing? Will the mini iPad be more convenient to consumers and boost sales? There are many pos-sibilities for Apple to reach the price target of $1000.

The first ground break-ing piece of technology that they released to the tech market was the iPod. The iPod was one of the

most bought products in the tech industry when it hit stores, however due to Apple adding iTunes to the iPhone and iPad, iPod sales have decreased leading Apple to focus on other ar-eas of the tech market. The California based company has been dominating every sector of the tech market, but how long will it last? Where will they stand five to ten years from now?

Samsung recently has released a commercial that is popular on YouTube which takes shots at the new iPhone. The commeri-cial claims that the Sam-sung Galaxy 2 is a much better phone due to its bigger screen and already existing 4G capabilities. Sales could be through the roof if Apple is successful with the release of Apple TV, but what if it isn’t suc-cessful?

Other companie, such as Google, are looking to do

something similar to Apple T.V. It will be interesting to see which company will be the most innovative in to creating new tech products in the next couple of years. The last 10 yers have been quite a ride for Apple. Who would of thought that a company like Apple would be selling cell phones 10 years ago?

It is possible other tech companies will create more innovative products that will steal the spot-light from Apple. In order for Apple to continually do well they will need to constantly think of inno-vative ideas that will draw consumers to buy their products. Innovation will be something discussed within the upcoming years. For other companies to outperform Apple they will need to create a prod-uct that is easy to use and different from what Apple already has on the market.

Apple tries to stay on the topPAUL ORDONEZ

Business Correspondent

Interested in writing for the business section?Contact: joseph.bruzzesi

Data from Sep 26.: DJIA: -44.04 (0.33%) S&P 500: -8.27 (0.57%) NASDAQ: -24.02 (0.77%) Oil: +$0.34 (0.38%) 10 Year Bond: +0.0005 (.004%)

COURTESY OF BLOOMBERGApple’s stock price has been rising at an increasing rate in recent years as it has consistently beat investor expectations.

COURTESY OF ASSOCIATED PRESSProtestors lined up by the thousands in Barcelona, Spain after several diffi cult austerity decisions made in the struggling European nation. Citizens are asking for a leader that is “fair and honest, and understand their rights.” Cutbacks will not go over well with citizens and riots and protests may grow at an alarming rate.


Oil is a valuable asset and is considered one of the top commodities that is traded on the com-modity exchange. Crude oil is what most traders follow, and oil has slow-ly declined in the last week. When the price of oil declines, it usu-ally has some effect on the price of gasoline at local gas stations. Crude futures dipped 0.45 (-.49 percent) Tuesday, which marks the fifth straight

day of declines. When a future declines, the trad-ers who buy put calls on the future benefit, while the traders who buy call futures usually see loss-es.

Usually, oil prices de-cline when there are sur-plus oil reserves around. Oil prices go up when there is an increase in demand, but remain flat or recede when the demand lowers and the supply increases. When there are surplus barrels of oil reserves, the U.S. does not need to keep buying oil at high prices.

This will ultimately make the prices go lower, be-cause companies hope that buyers may pur-chase more oil if it is at a lower price. Oil prices reached a 2012 high Sept. 14 when the U.S. an-nounced its third round of quantitative easing. The price of oil reached $100.42 a barrel when in-vestors speculated a rise in money supply, which could cause inflation and hurt the economy in the short run. After the highest prices were paid, the U.S. began to stop buying oil. This al-

lowed the prices of crude to decline, which has led to stiffer declines this week. The U.S. crude stockpiles rose to 361.8 million barrels last week, which has been the obvi-ous reason the U.S. has stopped buying at such high prices.

Oil prices do not fluctuate just because of micro- and macro-economic reasons. They can also fluctuate based on company expecta-tion and consumer out-look. For example, FedEx Corp. recently cut its forecasts for growth for

2013. When a company that relies heavily on jet fuel and gas for its de-livery vehicles, such as FedEx, cuts an estimate on growth, this usually affects the price of oil in the short run. FedEx is a big customer in the oil market, and when a future of growth is cut, this usually means the company will start cut-ting back on the amount of oil it purchases.

Many can argue about which commodities are important, but looking at oil should definitely be a concern on any Ameri-

can’s mind. Keeping an eye on oil will not only benefit a person’s knowl-edge of futures, but can also help save money. Knowing when crude oil is down is usually an indicator that prices of gas will be down, which will make things a little easier on American wal-lets. Oil is a precious commodity that America cannot live without, and its prices are affected by everything, from con-sumers to what’s happen-ing abroad. One cannot forget the influence oil has on daily commerce.

BRIAN LOPESStaff Writer

Shifting oil prices affect average consumer’s purchasing power

The S&P 500, an index that measures the stocks of the top 500 publicly traded American com-panies, has gained 46.66 points and appreciated 3.3 percent over the last month. It would make sense to assume this in-crease in the S&P 500 is a prelude for positive quar-terly earnings. However, there are factors other than simple fundamen-tals that have been dan-gerously pushing stocks higher. Investors are be-ing deprived of yield and are hunting for returns on their investments. Low interest rates in the bond market have forced

investors to take on more risk and buy stocks. This new money coming over from the bond market into the stock market is helping stock prices go higher and is hurting the compensation for bond traders.

The Federal Reserve’s recent quantitative eas-ing will undoubtedly lead to inflation in the future. Inflation can be defined as the percentage change in prices from year to year. Quantitative eas-ing may lead to inflation, which will force stock prices to go higher. Infla-tion causes stock prices to increase along with the cost of toothpaste and other goods.

It is also important to note the recent craze over Apple’s stock, which

represents 8 percent of the S&P 500. As Apple’s stock appreciates, the S&P 500 respectively ap-preciates along with all other related technol-ogy companies. Apple has truly turned into a significant market-mov-ing company. Big Wall Street money that was on the sidelines await-ing the Federal Reserve’s decision may have also come back into the stock market and effectively pushed stocks higher. Others argue that retail investors feel more com-fortable owning stocks because of the Federal Reserve’s choice to con-tinue quantitative eas-ing, which also is push-ing stocks higher. If the economy weakens, our government has shown

that it will step in to pro-vide support.

The multibillion-dollar question heading into earnings season is, “Are stock prices justifying what their earnings re-ports are about to say?” Corporate earnings were generally strong up un-til the previous earnings season in August. It is important to remember that earnings estimates were considerably lower for quarters following the recession. Companies beating analysts’ earn-ings estimates may have actually done so through a combination of low ex-pectations and cutting expenses, such as laying off workers.

Over the past eight decades, when 10-year treasury yields were be-

low the rate of inflation, as they were recently, the S&P 500 has tended to trade below 12 times for-ward earnings estimates, according to a recent Morgan Stanley report. It is 13.7 times forward esti-mates now. In a nutshell, Morgan Stanley believes stocks are overvalued and based on the points mentioned it is hard to argue otherwise. Some notable corporate earn-ings that have come in below estimates are Bed Bath and Beyond, Oracle, CarMax, FedEx, Five Be-low and IPO Palo Alto Networks. All of their stocks are trading lower following their earnings releases. On the bright side, companies such as General Mills, Auto Zone and KB Homes are all

trading higher following earnings, which is a good sign for the economy.

The University’s P.R.I.S.M. group, which manages $250,000 of the school’s endowment fund, is positioning it-self for a relatively weak earnings season.

“We are a global econ-omy. The European re-cession and slowdown in China are going to hurt U.S. corporate earnings this quarter,” P.R.I.S.M. member Donnie Giorda-no said.

Buyers beware: corpo-rations cannot hide the truth in their earnings statements. Investors should expect a signifi-cant sell-off in all major indices if the earnings numbers do not justify the stock prices.

Company earnings may not refl ect S&P increaseJOSEPH MUOIO

Business Columnist

*Editors’ note: The Aqui-nas staff highlighted the Republican economic plan it its Sept. 20 issue. That article was inadvertently credited to the wrong author. Daniel Massari wrote both articles in the series covering the presi-dential candidates’ eco-nomic plans.

“Today we begin in earnest the work of mak-ing sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today,” President Obama said. At a recent speech, Obama addressed the issues fac-ing the United States economy. Like his oppo-nent, Governor Mitt Rom-ney, Obama has released a detailed plan for the economy that he will im-plement if he is re-elected in November. Much like Romney’s plan, which is titled the Obama-Biden plan consists of a combi-nation of tax and budget changes to help facilitate growth in the economy.

The Obama-Biden plan differs drastically from the Romney-Ryan plan. Instead of decreasing taxes and extending the Bush-era tax cuts which Romney has proposed, Obama’s plan would in-crease a number of feder-al tax rates. His plan sug-gests that by increasing

taxes on certain income levels and using that tax revenue to fund increases in government spending we will be able to prosper growth of the economy. Some of the new taxes would include those that were built into the Afford-able Care Act, which man-dates that all Americans have some sort of health insurance. Obama has also pledged to continue tax cuts for singles mak-ing under $200,000 a year

and couples making over $250,000, but plans to let these cuts expire for peo-ple earning incomes above those limits.

Obama’s tax increases do not stop there. In the proposal, the “Buffett Rule,” increases capital gains taxes 100 percent; as a result, the United States would have the fourth highest taxes in the world. Additionally, Obama contends that his package of tax increases

is mainly directed toward the upper class, which he believes should hold more of the tax burden than the rest of the United States. His tax increases protect the lower and middle classes by keeping their tax rates almost com-pletely unchanged. The president plans to use this increase in tax revenue to increase the size of regula-tory agencies and use the money to improve a dete-riorating which include in-

frastructure of highways and power systems.

In a recent speech de-livered in Cleveland, the president said that the best way to drive economic re-covery and create jobs is by increasing government spending. Despite this, the largest portion of the increase in government spending is to increase regulatory oversight. His plan includes increasing oversight in a number of government sectors like

the Environmental Protec-tion Agency, whose main regulatory responsibilities have been focused on oil and gas producers. This agencies responsibility is now extending to include natural gas drilling and other new forms of green energy. Obama also plans to continue tax credits and investment for new technology in the energy sector because he believes that supporting this area is critical in keeping the United States the econom-ic powerhouse that it has been for the last century.

The largest part of in-creased regulation is in the financial sector. Under Obama’s proposed plan, hundreds of new regula-tions would be instituted as a result of the “Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.” Obama believes that the financial sector has been unregulated for too long and threatens the entire U.S. economy. Un-der the Dodd-Frank leg-islation, regulators would create some 240 new rules and conduct over 60 stud-ies on the financial sector. The president feels that the financial sector needs to be brought back under control before the country can see real growth in the economy.

This article only brief-ly touches on many of Obama’s proposed actions to help the United States economy. For complete information on all of his policies, please visit www.barackobama.com.

DANIEL MASSARIStaff Writer

Obamanomics: Obama provides recession solution

COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONSPRESIDENT OBAMA, like Governor Mitt Romney, has presented a plan for America’s economic recovery. Obama strongly believes that job growth will be a result of increased tax revenue and government spending.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The man known to a generation of Americans as "The Science Guy" is condemning efforts by some Christian groups to cast doubts on evolu-tion and lawmakers who want to bring the Bible into science classrooms.

Bill Nye, a mechanical engineer and star of the popular 1990s TV show "Bill Nye The Science Guy," has waded into the evolu-tion debate with an online video that urges parents not to pass their religious-based doubts about evolu-tion on to their children.

Christians who view the stories of the Old Tes-tament as historical fact have come to be known as creationists, and many argue that the world was created by God just a few thousand years ago.

"The Earth is not 6,000 or 10,000 years old," Nye said in an interview with The Associated Press. "It's not. And if that con-flicts with your beliefs, I strongly feel you should question your beliefs."

Millions of Americans do hold those beliefs, ac-cording to a June Gallup poll that found 46 per-cent of Americans be-lieve God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago.

Nye, 56, also decried ef-forts in recent years by lawmakers and school boards in some states to present Bible stories as an alternative to evolution in public schools. Tennessee passed a law earlier this year that protects teach-ers who let students criti-cize evolution and other scientific theories. That echoes a Louisiana law passed in 2008 that al-lows teachers to introduce

supplemental teaching ma-terials in science classes.

"If we raise a generation of students who don't be-lieve in the process of sci-ence, who think everything that we've come to know about nature and the uni-verse can be dismissed by a few sentences translated into English from some an-cient text, you're not going to continue to innovate," Nye said in a wide-rang-ing telephone interview.

The brief online vid-eo was not Nye's first foray into the combus-tible debate, but "it's the first time it's gotten to be such a big deal."

"I can see where one gets so caught up in this (debate) that you say something that will galva-nize people in a bad way, that will make them hate you forever," he said. "But I emphasize that I'm not questioning someone's re-ligion — much of that is how you were brought up."

In the video he tells adults they can dismiss evolution, "but don't make your kids do it. Because we need them." Posted by Big Think, an online knowledge forum, the clip went viral and has 4.6 million views on YouTube. It has garnered 182,000 comments from critics and supporters.

It drew the ire of the cre-ationism group Answers in Genesis, which built a bibli-cally based Creation Muse-um in Kentucky that teach-es the stories of the Old Testament and has attract-ed headlines for its asser-tion that dinosaurs roamed alongside Adam and Eve.

The group produced a response video featuring two scientists who say the Bible has the true ac-count of Earth's origins, and that "children should be exposed to both ideas concerning our past."

Nye, who is prone to in-ject dry humor into scien-

tific discussions, said Earth is about 4.5 billion years old.

"What I find troubling, when you listen to these people ... once in a while I get the impression that they're not kidding," Nye said.

Ken Ham, a co-founder of Answers in Genesis, said dating methods used by scientists to measure the age of the earth are contradictory and many don't point to millions or billions of years of time.

"We say the only dat-ing method that is absolute is the Word of God," Ham said. "Time is the crucial factor for Bill Nye. With-out the time of millions of years, you can't pos-tulate evolution change."

America is home to the world's biggest creation-ist following, Ham said, and the $27 million Cre-ation Museum has aver-aged about 330,000 visitors a year since it opened just south of Cincinnati in 2007.

Nye can't talk for long about science without mentioning his current pas-sion: speaking out against proposed government cuts to NASA's planetary sciences division. Nye is CEO of The Planetary So-ciety, an organization in Pasadena, Calif., that pro-motes space exploration.

NASA's landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars last month is the kind of technological achievement that get kids interested in science, Nye said, but funding cuts would en-danger future missions.

He said if Curiosity is able to find evidence of life on Mars — perhaps in the form of fossilized microorganisms — it would "change the world."

"It would change the way everybody feels about his or her place in space," he said. "And we do that for $300 million a year, which is not even a buck a person. We don't want to cut that."

Apple rolled out iOS 6, the latest update to the operating system that powers the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch last week. This new update offers another set of advance-ments and improvements to the software that mil-lions of Apple users uti-lize on a daily basis. Many of these changes succeed in providing a smoother and more robust experi-ence, but as is the case with every operating sys-tem update, not every change was for the better.

Apple has augmented many of its core applica-tions with lots of new and interesting features. For example, users can now respond to incoming calls with a text message and, when a call is declined, they can also set a re-minder to call that person back. The camera now includes a panorama fea-ture, which analyzes pho-to data from the lens and creates a detailed pan-oramic photo with up to a whopping 28-megabyte file size. FaceTime has been upgraded to sup-port cellular networks, so you can now make video calls no matter where you are. Safari now supports offline page reading and tab syncing via iCloud. So for example, you can start reading a website on your iPhone and finish reading it on your MacBook Air running OS X 10.7 or later.

Apple has added a handful of new apps to the system as well. One of these new apps is called Passbook. It promises to collect all your board-ing passes, gift cards and tickets in one place. Few companies currently sup-port this feature, how-

ever, so time will tell how popular or useful this app will become. Additionally, the company has rebuilt its Maps application to utilize its own mapping system instead of using Google Maps. The appli-cation now includes turn-by-turn directions spoken by Siri and a 3D map view-ing feature called Flyover.

The operating system itself has also seen some refinements. Facebook is now fully integrated throughout the system, so users can post status updates, pictures, vid-eos and more from al-most anywhere on their phones. Siri has been updated with the ability to provide sports scores, open apps, find movie times and help make res-taurant reservations. The accuracy of Siri’s voice recognition has been im-proved as well. A special function called Do Not Disturb has also been added. When you turn Do Not Disturb on, all incoming calls and noti-fications will automati-

cally be silenced and the phone’s screen will not light up. Your alarms will still go off, however, so this mode is perfect for nights when you don’t want to be woken up. You can also create a list of people whose calls will al-ways go through, so you don’t have to worry about missing important calls.

Despite all these posi-tive advancements, iOS 6 is not without its prob-lems. The issue that the community has been most vocal about is the problems with the new Maps app. While most United States map data is correct, many interna-tional users have reported incorrect map data, with issues ranging from small errors (businesses marked a block or two away from their actual locations) to glaring omissions (entire lakes and islands miss-ing). The new Flyover feature also has several interesting graphical bugs, like bridges melting into the ocean and roads bending in impossible ways. This is to be ex-pected of a new attempt at a worldwide mapping program, but many us-ers were put off by the extent of the errors. Ad-ditionally, older iPhone models do not support many of the update’s new features. The iPhone 4, for example, cannot pro-vide turn-by-turn direc-tions, panoramic photos or FaceTime over cellular. This has always been the case, however, as older hardware is often not powerful enough to han-dle newer, more proces-sor-intense features. At the end of the day, iOS 6 is a pleasant and welcome refinement of a quality mobile operating system, and most users will want to download it if they have not already done so.

Jennifer Zarate

Science & Technology EditorScience Tech12 THE AQUINAS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

Baxter robots work alongside humans

New Apple software debuts Debate ensues over Bill Nye evolution

SUBMITTED PHOTO: DOMINIqUE LAGIGLIA FOR THE AqUINAS

APPLE iOS 6’s newest update offers advance-ments and improve-ments in apps, features, its camera and its own map.

DYLAN LOVANAssociated Press

Robots seem to become more likely to replace hu-man workers in factories because they can work more quickly and more efficiently than most hu-mans. The problem with many of today’s machines, however, is that they op-erate at extremely high speeds and must be kept isolated lest they harm the humans around them.

According to an article in IEEE Spectrum maga-zine, Rodney Brooks, the founder, chairman, and chief technology officer (CTO) of Rethink Robot-ics, wants to reverse this aspect of robots by creat-ing a human-friendly and human-safe robot to en-courage human workers to use robotic assistants.

Before one can con-vince humans to work alongside robots, robots must be made safer for humans. The new Bax-ter robot, manufactured by Rethink Robotics, ful-fills this requirement. A plethora of safety mecha-nisms are built into the machine, each designed to make the robot more “compliant” to humans and its surroundings.

According to the ar-ticle, Matt Williamson, Rethink’s director of the technology department, says a robot is compli-ant “when it’s not com-pletely rigid and when it can sense and control the forces it applies to things.”

The Baxter robot has many sonar sensors around its head. When it senses humans approach-ing or an obstacle in its path, it will automati-

cally slow its movements. The manufacturers intend Baxter to have the abil-ity to adjust itself ac-cordingly when it senses people to keep from ac-cidentally harming them. Another safety feature is a face that lights up red to alert people to the fact that it is aware of their presence. Finally, the robot has a large, red emergency “e-stop” but-ton that will immediately shut down and disable it.

Williamson hopes that this button will one day be eradicated, but for now it is necessary for humans to feel more com-fortable around robots.

To engineer the types of movements the robot’s hand can make, Javier Movellan, the director of the Machine Perception Laboratory at the Univer-sity of California in San

Diego, traveled to Tijuana, Mexico to record videos of workers in factories. He analyzed the way the workers used their hands to complete their tasks and discovered that hu-mans used their hands in ways different than those of today’s robots, which may help increase movement and dexter-ity in the ands of robots.

According to a New York Times article, de-clining costs of computer sensors and of comput-ing chips increase the feasibility of creating robots with new powers of vision and touch. Uni-versal Robots, a robotic firm from Denmark, has created a robot arm that does not need to be iso-lated but does require a skilled programmer for operation. All these ad-vancements increase the

probability that robots will one day work in fac-tories alongside humans. The final issue to be dis-cussed before that step is taken is to compare the robots’ efficacy with that of human workers.

When prototypes of Baxter were tested in a few companies in New Hampshire, companies calculated that the robot can work for about $4 per hour, which is quite economical. Although some workers could get displaced if they lost their jobs to robots, com-panies have decided to move them to other posi-tions that require higher-level skills. Workers can then focus on areas such as design, engineering, planning and trouble-shooting. They can even train robots for work.

During field tests, em-

ployees initially seem puzzled or surprised by the robot, but once they have worked with Bax-ter for some time, many of them find Baxter to be an incomparable aid.

“People sort of personi-fy the robot. They say, ‘It’s my buddy!’” Brooks said.

Baxter costs approxi-mately $22,000. Rethink Robotics hopes to sell Bax-ter robots at this price. The company wants to emu-late the success of com-puter companies that first began to sell affordable computers that ordinary people could use. Making robots more accessible to the general popula-tion will revolutionize the relationship between humans and robots and make the idea of working with robots one that is as common as using com-puters or smartphones.

LOUIS BALZANISci/Tech Correspondent

ALICE CHEN LIAWSci/Tech Correspondent


Faith Andrew MilewskiFaith Editor

Monday-Friday

12:05 p.m. & 4:40 p.m.

Chapel of the Sacred Heart

Sacrament of Reconciliation

Monday-Friday 11:30 a.m.


Sunday

11 a.m., 7 p.m. & 9:30 p.m.

Madonna Della Strada Chapel

Mass Schedule

Retreat leaders prepare for SEARCH

Sophomores participated in a unique reflection expe-rience this past weekend. In “Spicing Up Sophomore Year,” sophomores explored spirituality through an un-usual medium: food. The re-treat formed last year when a group of five sophomores attended the Campus Min-istry Leadership Institute at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, along with University Minister Amy Hoegen. The purpose of the institute was to help campus ministry groups from across the country develop, fully plan and present a project that they wanted to bring to life on their campus that year.

“The retreat is food-themed and attempts to bal-ance the fun of the freshman Connections retreat with a more spiritually-intense

retreat like SEARCH which is reserved for upperclass-men,” Lauren Prizing, one of the founding members and former leader, said.

It is easy to notice how sophomores can often fall through the cracks: they no longer receive the attention that first years receive, and at the same time they are not quite as independent as upperclassmen. Yet sopho-mores are put through as much stress as first years or upperclassmen. Whether it is declaring a major, being en-couraged to think about ca-reer options or starting their internships, sophomores have a lot on their plates.

The retreat leaders had all this in mind. The retreat leaders included sopho-mores Chris Troisi, Carly Walsh, Mary Kate Gallagher, Erin Comey, Emily Lang, Margaret Mester and Brian Dolan, and the retreat fo-cused on a variety of activi-

ties, which included (in addi-tion to the food) a morning prayer, an M&M personality test with discussion and a scavenger hunt. Many of the activities included exploring self-identity, a big concern for many sophomores in the college transition.

The retreat balanced re-flection with fun. The par-ticipants spent free time by the waters of Chapman Lake. Part of the retreat also included watching and re-flecting on Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax,” a recent film with themes that touch on greed and people’s impacts on the world. However, food once again popped up with candy in a five senses activity and reflection.

“I’m happy I took the time to go on it because it really lowered my stress levels, as well as brought me closer to God and the other sopho-mores,” participant Natalie Della Posta said.

ANDREW MILEWSKI Faith Editor

This week, the student leaders for The University’s SEARCH retreat were an-nounced. The female leaders are seniors Katie Tomla and Katherine Juliano, juniors Anna Heckman and Devon Cohen and PT graduate stu-dent Anahita Saadat. The male leaders are all seniors and include Bob Law, Jerry Mantone, Daniel Fletcher, Jimmy Mirra and Jack Ham-brose.

Fr. Bill Gavin, S.J., brought SEARCH to The University in 1984, after running it mul-tiple times at Georgetown University. Since then, it has grown immensely. There are, on average, 50 students and 10 team members in atten-dance at each session. Inter-est in the retreat is incredibly high, so this year, for the first time, The University is hold-ing three separate Friday to Sunday sessions in Novem-ber, February and April. Since 1984, over 2,400 people have particpated in the retreat.

SEARCH is based upon the model of the Cursillo retreat, which emerged for adults in the 1960s, when, following Vatican II, retreats run by lay-people surged and flourished. Retreats of this kind are driv-en by talks and discussions and run by the peers of par-

ticipants. What differenti-ates SEARCH from Cursillo and other retreats following this system (such as Kairos, for high school-aged teenag-ers) are the issues addressed within them. As the interests and concerns of the attend-ees grow and change, so do the retreats, which is why it is important to have one spe-cifically for college students.

“SEARCH focuses on rela-tionships; relationships with oneself, with God and with others,” Cathy Seymour, uni-versity minister and adminis-trator of SEARCH, said.

Cathy Seymour made the SEARCH retreat for the first time as a student, and was in-credibly touched by it. When she returned to The Universi-ty, she aided Fr. Joe Simmons,

S.J., in administrating the re-treat, until he left it to her in 1992. She has overseen it ever since.

“The retreat would be nothing without the amazing Cathy Seymour, who is the backbone and foundation of SEARCH and puts countless hours into preparation and making the experience what it is”, Katie Tomla, the student

retreat leader, said. “She is God for us and for so many people”.

Although participants are asked not to share specific activities or discussions to en-sure that each particpant has a unique experience, interest in SEARCH continues to grow due to the enthusiasm of re-turning students. It is meant to allow students to connect

and form bonds with peers they may never speak to oth-erwise. It encourages them to branch out beyond their comfort zones and find God through other people and themselves. Ultimately, stu-dents can reflect upon their own lives and relationships with God, family and each other in a supportive environ-ment of peers experiencing the same thing.

“I understand SEARCH as a weekend that gives you the opportunity to celebrate oth-ers, while you are also very celebrated yourself,” Tomla said. “If anything, I just want people to see SEARCH as an opportunity to be appreci-ated, an opportunity to get away for the weekend, make some new friends, maybe think about some things and eat some moose tracks.”

One distinctive facet of the SEARCH experience at The University is the Monthly Renewal. Every month, past participants of SEARCH have the chance to gather for meals or to listen to a speaker. This maintains the spirit of kinship among particpants, who are asked to stay in touch.

This year, SEARCH will be held Nov. 2-4, Feb. 15-17 and April 19-21 at The Univer-sity’s beautiful retreat center at Chapman Lake. For more information on this opportu-nity, please visit the Campus Ministries office.

CAILIN POTAMIFaith Correspondent

SUBMITTED PHOTO: CAMPUS MINISTRIES FOR THE AqUINAS LEADERS OF the SEARCH 65 retreat stand on the Chapman Lake Retreat House dock at the end of the week-end retreat. The SEARCH retreat will be held three times this year.

Sophomores cook up reflection recipe

SUBMITTED PHOTO: AMY HOEGEN FOR THE AqUINAS SOPHOMORES ASHLEY Allegra, Mary Longest and Claire Buckley (left to right) participate in a morning prayer on the sophomore retreat.


Faith Andrew MilewskiFaith Editor

Monday-Friday

12:05 p.m. & 4:40 p.m.


Sacrament of Reconciliation

Monday-Friday 11:30 a.m.


Sunday

11 a.m., 7 p.m. & 9:30 p.m.

Madonna Della Strada Chapel

Mass Schedule

Retreat leaders prepare for SEARCH

Sophomores participated in a unique reflection expe-rience this past weekend. In “Spicing Up Sophomore Year,” sophomores explored spirituality through an un-usual medium: food. The re-treat formed last year when a group of five sophomores attended the Campus Min-istry Leadership Institute at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, along with University Minister Amy Hoegen. The purpose of the institute was to help campus ministry groups from across the country develop, fully plan and present a project that they wanted to bring to life on their campus that year.

“The retreat is food-themed and attempts to bal-ance the fun of the freshman Connections retreat with a more spiritually-intense

retreat like SEARCH which is reserved for upperclass-men,” Lauren Prizing, one of the founding members and former leader, said.

It is easy to notice how sophomores can often fall through the cracks: they no longer receive the attention that first years receive, and at the same time they are not quite as independent as upperclassmen. Yet sopho-mores are put through as much stress as first years or upperclassmen. Whether it is declaring a major, being en-couraged to think about ca-reer options or starting their internships, sophomores have a lot on their plates.

The retreat leaders had all this in mind. The retreat leaders included sopho-mores Chris Troisi, Carly Walsh, Mary Kate Gallagher, Erin Comey, Emily Lang, Margaret Mester and Brian Dolan, and the retreat fo-cused on a variety of activi-

ties, which included (in addi-tion to the food) a morning prayer, an M&M personality test with discussion and a scavenger hunt. Many of the activities included exploring self-identity, a big concern for many sophomores in the college transition.

The retreat balanced re-flection with fun. The par-ticipants spent free time by the waters of Chapman Lake. Part of the retreat also included watching and re-flecting on Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax,” a recent film with themes that touch on greed and people’s impacts on the world. However, food once again popped up with candy in a five senses activity and reflection.

“I’m happy I took the time to go on it because it really lowered my stress levels, as well as brought me closer to God and the other sopho-mores,” participant Natalie Della Posta said.

ANDREW MILEWSKI Faith Editor

This week, the student leaders for The University’s SEARCH retreat were an-nounced. The female leaders are seniors Katie Tomla and Katherine Juliano, juniors Anna Heckman and Devon Cohen and PT graduate stu-dent Anahita Saadat. The male leaders are all seniors and include Bob Law, Jerry Mantone, Daniel Fletcher, Jimmy Mirra and Jack Ham-brose.

Fr. Bill Gavin, S.J., brought SEARCH to The University in 1984, after running it mul-tiple times at Georgetown University. Since then, it has grown immensely. There are, on average, 50 students and 10 team members in atten-dance at each session. Inter-est in the retreat is incredibly high, so this year, for the first time, The University is hold-ing three separate Friday to Sunday sessions in Novem-ber, February and April. Since 1984, over 2,400 people have particpated in the retreat.

SEARCH is based upon the model of the Cursillo retreat, which emerged for adults in the 1960s, when, following Vatican II, retreats run by lay-people surged and flourished. Retreats of this kind are driv-en by talks and discussions and run by the peers of par-

ticipants. What differenti-ates SEARCH from Cursillo and other retreats following this system (such as Kairos, for high school-aged teenag-ers) are the issues addressed within them. As the interests and concerns of the attend-ees grow and change, so do the retreats, which is why it is important to have one spe-cifically for college students.

“SEARCH focuses on rela-tionships; relationships with oneself, with God and with others,” Cathy Seymour, uni-versity minister and adminis-trator of SEARCH, said.

Cathy Seymour made the SEARCH retreat for the first time as a student, and was in-credibly touched by it. When she returned to The Universi-ty, she aided Fr. Joe Simmons,

S.J., in administrating the re-treat, until he left it to her in 1992. She has overseen it ever since.

“The retreat would be nothing without the amazing Cathy Seymour, who is the backbone and foundation of SEARCH and puts countless hours into preparation and making the experience what it is”, Katie Tomla, the student

retreat leader, said. “She is God for us and for so many people”.

Although participants are asked not to share specific activities or discussions to en-sure that each particpant has a unique experience, interest in SEARCH continues to grow due to the enthusiasm of re-turning students. It is meant to allow students to connect

and form bonds with peers they may never speak to oth-erwise. It encourages them to branch out beyond their comfort zones and find God through other people and themselves. Ultimately, stu-dents can reflect upon their own lives and relationships with God, family and each other in a supportive environ-ment of peers experiencing the same thing.

“I understand SEARCH as a weekend that gives you the opportunity to celebrate oth-ers, while you are also very celebrated yourself,” Tomla said. “If anything, I just want people to see SEARCH as an opportunity to be appreci-ated, an opportunity to get away for the weekend, make some new friends, maybe think about some things and eat some moose tracks.”

One distinctive facet of the SEARCH experience at The University is the Monthly Renewal. Every month, past participants of SEARCH have the chance to gather for meals or to listen to a speaker. This maintains the spirit of kinship among particpants, who are asked to stay in touch.

This year, SEARCH will be held Nov. 2-4, Feb. 15-17 and April 19-21 at The Univer-sity’s beautiful retreat center at Chapman Lake. For more information on this opportu-nity, please visit the Campus Ministries office.

CAILIN POTAMIFaith Correspondent

SUBMITTED PHOTO: CAMPUS MINISTRIES FOR THE AqUINAS LEADERS OF the SEARCH 65 retreat stand on the Chapman Lake Retreat House dock at the end of the week-end retreat. The SEARCH retreat will be held three times this year.

Sophomores cook up reflection recipe

SUBMITTED PHOTO: AMY HOEGEN FOR THE AqUINAS SOPHOMORES ASHLEY Allegra, Mary Longest and Claire Buckley (left to right) participate in a morning prayer on the sophomore retreat.

14 THE AQUINAS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

The Aquinas Challenge:

“CROSS-COUNTRY” FROM PAGE 16

Sudoku-razy

COURTESY OF MCT CAMPUS

The Night Circus enchants audience

THE AQUINAS CHALLENGE RULES:Finish the puzzle and turn it into The

Aquinas offi ce fi rst to win an AQ T-shirt. If the offi ce is closed, leave it with the Stu-

dent Forum desk with a time stamp.

Erin Morgenstern’s best-selling novel, “The Night Circus,” has been praised as one of the most enchanting of recent book releases. It is, technically, the story of two magicians locked in a duel to the death, but it’s no Har-ry Potter. In “The Night Cir-cus,” Morgenstern eschews high action for fairy-tale wonderment and, initially, does it quite well. Though the world of the circus daz-zles, the story ultimately disappoints, revealing its insubstantial foundations with a rushed ending that makes all the vivid descrip-tion that came before seem meaningless and showy.

The two protagonists — magicians Celia and Marco — have been set against each other from early childhood. Their re-spective mentors use them as players in a game that will prove which school of

magic theory is best, that which emphasizes natural ability or that which values skill through book-learning and practice. Of course, the two magicians fall in love, as heavy foreshadowing predicts. Yet all this — the main characters, their ro-mance, the entire existence of a life-threatening com-petition — is written as if incidental, even secondary, to the narration. The true protagonist is the circus itself.

This is the dazzling part: Morgenstern creates the perfect circus. It is stranger, more beautiful, more mys-terious and more beguiling than any circus outside of a novel could ever be. The circus opens only at night, showing up in cities all over the world, with no ad-vertisement or announce-ment. Its many tents house dreamlike environments, marvelous curiosities and incredible feats of architec-ture. To describe these tents

specifically would be to ruin the whole enjoyment of the novel. Morgenstern knows when to describe in detail and when to remain vague and allow room for reader imagination. If “The Night Circus” were simply about the Night Circus, the novel would have been an unparalleled success.

Unfortunately, the novel is about Celia and Marco, and Celia and Marco are the uninteresting, under-devel-oped lead actors in a cast of colorful but functionless ex-tras. They neither propel the story nor alter its direction, but simply stand by while the story happens around them. The plot itself loses all structure about halfway through the novel, as new tents are described, new characters introduced and the circus gains new scen-ery. Essentially, the novel’s plot is unfocused, and it is only in the last chapter or so of the story that the thread of the dueling magicians re-

surfaces. By then, the novel has become so structureless that there is no room to re-introduce what had been the main storyline. Conse-quently, the ending is unex-pected and appears to bear little relation to the rest of the novel.

What Morgenstern does well, she does beautifully, but what she does badly undermines nearly every-thing else. The excitement surrounding the book’s re-lease and the following ac-claim have almost entirely centered on the circus set-ting, but there should be more to a novel than its setting. Morgenstern lush-ly develops the world of “The Night Circus” at the expense of its inhabitants and with seemingly little re-gard for the significance of events occurring to them. There’s atmosphere, there’s fantasy and there’s plenty of imagery, but there’s sim-ply no point. The magic of the circus is incomplete.

VHALLA OTARODArts & Life Correspondent

59th (16:44.10) and senior Shannon Lavelle, who placed 71st (16:48.50).The top time in the wom-en’s race was 14:39.70, run by Emily Cotey, a junior at Cortland State. Junior Walter Cantwell led the men’s team at the competition. He finished the 6,000 meter course in 20:39.40, which placed

him 23rd out of 126 to-tal runners. This was the second time Cantwell has placed in the top 25 this year. “I think we raced really well,” Cantwell said. “We raced a lot smarter and a lot tougher and kept working from start to fin-ish. We did much better than at Vassar two weeks

ago.” Other Royals with no-table times were first-year Jason Sansky, who finished 32nd (20:52.30), junior Stefan Bossba-ly, who finished 36th (20:59.00), sophomore Bill Burke, who finished 38th (21:01.70), first-year Corey Wasilnak, who finished 54th (21:41.90), junior

Matthew DiMaio, who fin-ished 57th (21:55.00) and junior Matt Wilcox, who finished 61st (21:59.20). Tom Hopkins of Cort-land State took first place overall, with a time of 18:52.70The men’s and women’s team will return to action Oct. 6 at the Jack Saint Clair Memorial.

The Aquinas: What are your qualifications?

Dr. Paul Porter: “I re-ceived my master’s degree in communication and rhe-torical studies from East-ern Michigan University and a bachelor’s degree in communication from Ball State University. I earned my Ph.D. in educational leadership with a special-ization in higher education administration from Indi-ana State University.”

AQ: What is your teach-ing philosophy?

PP: “I take my philoso-phy from Paulo Freire who considers teaching a social

act that should evoke criti-cal thinking, discussion and discourse. It challeng-es people to want to know more, and be generous in the distribution of knowl-edge. I educate because I want students to be in-formed and engaged, as well as to empower them-selves and others. I’d rather students’ walk away ques-tioning topics and discuss it, as opposed to memoriz-ing facts. I want students to have the appetite for learning.”

AQ: What are your inter-ests?

PP: “I’m a sports nut! Especially, a huge Colts fan because I was born and raised in Indianapo-lis, Indiana. I also love to

play golf, and I’m a nerd for video games. I love to cook, watch musicals and theatre. I guess you can say I consider myself a cultured person. I enjoy reading a lot, and spend-ing time with my wife.”

AQ: What attracted you to The University?

PP: “I really like the mis-sion statement, particu-larly the Cura Personalis piece - respect for the uniqueness of each mem-ber of The University com-munity. I also like the op-portunities that the school presents.”

AQ: How are you adjust-ing to the NEPA?

PP: “It’s honestly not that different from India-napolis. Many characteris-

tics in Scranton remind me of home. It has been a nice adjustment and everyone is friendly. I like seeing the Poconos and the beautiful sites of the Scranton area. The transition has not been hard at all for these reasons.”

AQ: What is your favor-ite thing about Scranton so far?

PP: “Honestly I have to say the University, particu-larly its presence and its relationship with the town. I really enjoy the unique-ness of the local cuisines in the community. I also like the new adventures it presents as a new mem-ber of the community, and finding new places with my wife.”

THE AqUINAS PHOTO / SHAWN KENNEYPAUL PORTER, Ph.D, is the new director of The University’s Multicultural Affairs offi ce.

People Profile: Paul Porter


WILKES-BARRE (AP) — With four teen suicides in Luzerne County in the past week, many are asking what could have been done to prevent them and how to stop the problem from wors-ening.

The key, many experts say, is to recognize the symptoms of at-risk youth who are drowning in feel-ings of isolation.

“That’s when their think-ing goes bad,” said Richard Hazler, a professor of coun-selor education at Penn State University. “The more isolated the student is, the more likely it is to be a prob-lem.”

Because students in schools have the most boots on the ground, some are calling for more awareness training in the classroom.

“Just pummel them with that kind of teaching,” said Monica Ann Thomas, co-director for the Pennsylva-nia chapter of the watchdog and advocacy group Bully Police.

In an ideal world, children would have an entire class dedicated to anti-bullying, suicide prevention and iden-tifying at-risk youth, said Carolanne Jones-Leco, as-sociate director of clinical services at the Children’s Service Center, a private organization that sent grief counselors to the schools of the recent suicide victims.

Many school districts in Luzerne County already put their employees through training programs to recog-nize symptoms.

But after absorbing mil-lions of dollars in cuts from the state while simultane-ously juggling pressure from

the federal government to increase emphasis on the core subjects of math and reading, schools just don’t have the time or resources to increase training and awareness programs for stu-dents and teachers, Jones-Leco conceded.

All school districts are mandated by a 2008 law to have an anti-bullying policy, which defines the act and requires school officials to update the policy every three years. A new bill was introduced in the Pennsyl-vania Legislature on Friday that would strengthen the bill by including cyberbul-lying in the definition and would create a bullying da-tabase where schools would have to report incidents and complete an investigation for every instance.

In the rash of deaths this week, however, police and school officials say they have not been able to turn up any clear-cut evidence of bullying.

Motivations for suicide are too complicated to be determined by one thing, experts say. Instead, every-one from superintendents down to a struggling kid’s locker partner should never be afraid to broach the sub-ject with another person.

“If they’re thinking about it, you’re not going to make it worse,” Jones-Leco said. “If they weren’t thinking about it, you weren’t going to put it in there.”

Equally important is re-porting someone’s suicidal thoughts to others who are in the position to help, in-cluding teachers, principals and parents. Even if it might mean upsetting the secret-teller.

“We can fix mad,” Jones-Leco said. “We can’t fix the alternative.”

THE CITIZENS’ VOICEAssociated Press

Experts: Spotting symptoms is key

SPORTS 15THE AQUINAS THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

Men’s soccer still undefeated after tie

JUSTIN DWYERSports Correspondent

Golf looks to finish excellent fall semester

CASSIE ANDERSONSports Correspondent

The University’s men’s golf team continued its great play as it beat King’s College and Wilkes Uni-versity at the Wyoming Valley Country Club Mon-day afternoon.

The team once again was lead by senior Jamie Bresnahan and sophomore Erik Meyer, who both shot a 76. Juniors Charles Hu-dacek and Grant Gulick shot a 77 and 79, respec-tively.

Scranton also saw con-tributions from juniors Brandon Gano, who card-ed an 81, and Andrew Loy-

ack, who scored an 82. “I played pretty well to-

day, mostly because of my putting,” Bresnahan said. “More than anything else, today showed me that the team really feeds off of everyone’s energy as we’re playing.”

Bresnahan said the team could not have done so well if it was not for his teammates, especially Meyer.

“Erik has played some great golf this semester and has definitely shown his value to our team on the course,” Bresnahan said. “I’m really impressed by the maturity in his game as a sophomore. He will be a Royal name to keep in mind for the next

two and a half years.”The win against local

rivals King’s and Wilkes comes after Scranton won the Susquehanna Invita-tional against Gettysburg College Saturday after-noon.

Scranton won a tie-breaker against Gettys-burg. Both teams had a score of 317, but Scranton won on the second tie-breaker. The tiebreaker compared the scores of the number-one player listed for each team.

Susquehanna finished third with a 329, followed by McDaniel College with 332, Keystone College with 335 and Susquehan-na rounding out the com-petition with 342.

Freshman Will Young of Gettysburg won the individual title with a 74, while Bresnahan was awarded the runner-up af-ter finishing with a 77.

“This was our second first-place finish in an in-vitational this semester, and we shot a good score on a difficult course to get it,” Bresnahan said. “Everyone was really ex-cited.”

Contributing to the win for Scranton was senior Justin Riley, who shot a 79, Dudak, who scored an 80, Gulick, who shot an 81 and Meyer who scored an 87 in the final over Gettys-burg.

The Monday win brings Scranton’s record to 5-0.

The record includes a third-place standing and an individual first-place by Meyers at the Empire 8 Championships. The team’s last match of the fall semester is 1 p.m. Fri-day against Wilkes Uni-versity at Huntsville Golf Club in Lehman.

Bresnahan said he has high expectations for the spring season as well.

“We have one match left this fall, but I think you’re going to hear us make some noise in the spring as well,” Bresna-han said. “I think we un-doubtedly have the best golf teams in NEPA, and one of the best teams in the northeast for division three golf.”

DONALD CASTELLUCCISports Correspondent

Tennis teams start sea-sons with victories

After a nightmarish 0-4-2 start, the Scranton wom-en’s soccer team has strung together four straight vic-tories and are right back at the .500 mark with two wins this week.

The Royals defeated Goucher College 3-0 Sat-urday afternoon in their first Landmark Conference match of the year. Scran-ton dominated Goucher from the first whistle, scor-ing three times in the first half. The Gophers, who entered the match with an undefeated record of 7-0, posted only five shots Sat-urday afternoon.

Scranton got on the board in the 24th minute when junior Sam Russo finished her second goal of the season on an as-sist from sophomore Ellen Walker. Just 11 minutes later, first-year Michaela Arbus tallied her first col-legiate goal off a feed from fellow first-year class-mate Gianna Vitolo. Vitolo capped the first half scor-ing with a goal of her own

just three minutes after Arbus.

That explosive first half would be all the Roy-als needed. Scranton kept Goucher off the board in the second half while maintaining constant pres-sure on the Goucher de-fense. The loss dropped the Gophers to 7-1.

Scranton extended its winning streak to four by defeating Muhlenberg College Tuesday night in Allentown. Senior Sarah Gibbons scored her second goal of the season which ended up being the only goal of the match. Junior goalkeeper Kelsey McAnel-ly needed to stop just two shots to preserve the vic-tory for the Royals.

Tuesday night’s win was arguably Scranton’s best result of the season. Muhlenberg, a perennial powerhouse in the Mid-Atlantic region, was com-ing off a win against Johns Hopkins, who is ranked sixth nationally.

During the Royals’ four-game winning streak, they have outscored opponents 9-0. The veteran backline of Amanda Kresge, Emily

Farrell, Noelle Malone and Jess Sciscione has contin-ued to stymie the oppo-nents’ offensive attack.

“This will be the third season we have been play-ing on the backline to-gether, so we pretty much know what each other is going to do and when they are going to do it,” Kresge said. “Having a strong and consistent back four is im-portant to the success of a team’s defensive effort.”

In between the pipes, McAnelly is carrying a goals against average of 0.94. Additionally, she has posted five shutouts for the Purple and White. For her career, McAnelly cur-rently has 15 shutouts, nine of which came last season.

“Having five shutouts is more a testimony to the team and how hard the girls have been working,” McAnelly said. “The four seniors on the backline are great players and they have been working ex-tremely well together.”

The Royals will look to extend its winning streak to five games on the road-Saturday against Farming-dale State College.

MATT SALVATOREStaff Writer

Women’s soccer puts rough start away with winning streak

The women’s and men’s tennis teams at The University are off to a strong start in the fall season.

The women’s team won their season opener Sunday against Marywood University 6-3 at Pacer Courts.

Sunday’s win was the Roy-als’ first season opener win since 2006.

In doubles action, both pairs won their matches. Sophomores Megan Azza-lina and Nicole Mahaffey won 8-5. Senior Lindsay Ward and sophomore Lisa-Marie Lan-ciotti defeated their oppo-nents 8-6.

Azzalina and Lanciotti won their singles matches with the scores of 6-3, 6-4 at one and 6-0, 6-7, 4-7, 6-1 at five.

First-year Emily Walsh and junior Devon Cohen were able to add wins to their resume this weekend as they won their single matches. Walsh won at two with 6-1, 6-1, while Cohen won at four with 6-1, 6-2.

Cohen said she was happy with how her season started.

“I was very pleased and proud of the team effort,” Co-hen said. “We have only been practicing for two weeks, but came out and played our best at Marywood and came away with the win.”

The men’s team opened its fall season with a win the first day at the Scranton Invitation-al Saturday.

The Royals advanced six singles players to the semi-finals and one doubles team to the finals in the two-day event.

The men went 10-4 in sin-gles action and 3-3 in doubles play.

Seniors Tim McGurrin and Joe Morra and junior David Teres reached the semifinals in the first flight of singles competition.

Morra won both matches with scores of 6-4, 6-2. McGur-rin and Teres won only one of their matches, with McGurrin scoring 6-1, 1-6, 11-9.

Seniors Bennett Kelley and Mike Pannone each won straight sets to enter the semi-finals.

In the third flight, senior Jonathan Russo beat his team-mate James Dalkiewicz to ad-vance to the semifinals with scores of 6-2, 7-5. Dalkiewicz, a first-year student, won his first round before his defeat by Russo.

During doubles action, Pannone and Morra won their matches to reach the first flight of the finals. In the sec-ond flight, Russo and Teres won their opening doubles match before falling in the semifinals.

The women’s team will return to action 3:30 p.m. Wednesday against Kutztown University.

The men’s team next com-petes at home 9 a.m. Saturday at the Royal Courts at DeNa-ples Fields.

The University’s men’s soccer team faced adver-sity Tuesday afternoon in Ithaca, N.Y., for the first time this season. After a Scranton goal was called back because of an off-sides call, the Royals (7-0-1) battled the Ithaca Bombers (3-1-4) to a scoreless tie in double overtime.

The tie was the first minor blemish on what has been an extraordinary start for the Royals, who are having their best start to a season since 1987. The Royals are one of 10 teams at the NCAA Division III level to remain unbeaten.

The team is also touting a few nationally-ranked in-dividuals. Senior goalkeep-er James Dillon is among the top goalkeepers in the nation with a goals-against average of .714. Senior co-captain Bill McGuiness is 40th in the country in points per game at 2.14.

The Royals began Land-mark Conference play Sat-

urday afternoon at Fitzpat-rick Field against Goucher College. The win avenged last year’s 1-0 away loss to the Gophers. Junior John Spadaro scored off a re-bound from defenseman Joel Potter’s shot. The goal came with less than 20 minutes to go. Spadaro’s goal was a prompt re-sponse after the Gophers had tied the game at one point just three minutes earlier.

Sophomore Richard Loeffler and senior Patrick Daley also added goals for the Royals.

“It was a big win to gear us up for the next confer-ence game at Mechant Ma-rine,” Daley said. “Goucher beat us last year in our conference opener so it was a good revenge game.”

Scranton was looking to continue its winning streak when the team traveled to Ithaca Tuesday afternoon.

Ithaca was coming off a streak of three consecutive overtime games.

Neither team was able to find the back of the net in the first half, and 45 minutes concluded with no score. The Bombers didn’t record a shot until the sec-ond half.

The second half provid-ed much of the same, as neither team was able to find a breakthrough goal. The Royals thought they scored in the 76th minute, but it was called back be-cause of an offsides call.

After another exciting 20 minutes, where both teams had great chances to score, the Royals were not able to take advantage of a tired Ithaca team and set-tled for a draw. The Royals outshot the Bombers 16-11, but the most telling stat of the day was offsides calls. The Royals’ were called off-sides five times.

“We need to play sharp and with urgency through-out the entire game and not just in spells,” McGui-ness said. “We felt we were

good enough to win that game, but we didn’t capi-talize on our opportuni-ties.”

The Royals look forward to an exciting matchup versus the United States Merchant Marine Academy. USMMA has won the last two conference champion-ships. McGuiness believes that Scranton can take on the challenge and put the Ithaca game behind them.

“We are excited to get back out and get a result versus this team on Satur-day,” McGuiness said. “We are eager to erase this per-formance [Tuesday’s game] from our memory by put-ting in a good performance in a huge conference game. I think we’ll be ready.”

In the most recent Na-tional Soccer Coaches As-sociation poll, Scranton moved up to ninth in the Mid-Atlantic region rank-ings. They were previously ranked 10th.

The Royals will face Landmark Conference rival Merchant Marine Academy at 6 p.m. Saturday.

THE AqUINAS PHOTO / CHRIS DOLANSENIOR MATT Salvatore makes a quick turn at midfi eld in Saturday’s game against Goucher College. The Royals won their fi rst conference game against the Gophers 3-1.

After tough tournament, Royals rebound

The women’s volleyball team tallied a 1-3 record Fri-day and Saturday at the Uni-versity of Chicago Invitational in Illinois, but took a 3-0 win against Baptist Bible College Tuesday.

The team lost to Heidel-berg University 3-0 and Car-roll University (Wisc.) 3-0. The Royals showed signs of hope when they defeated Chatham College 3-1, but later lost to Mount Union College 3-1 Sat-urday.

Senior outside hitter Jenell McFadden and sophomore outside hitter Julia Crilly com-bined for 13 kills and 10 digs, and senior digs record-holder Marissa Every recorded 19 digs in the loss to Carroll Fri-day.

Three freshmen stepped up in the victory over Cha-tham. Outside hitters Lizzy Zimmermann and Molly Lof-tus tallied season-highs of 13 and 12 kills respectively, and setter Katherine Flanagan notched 33 assists in the win.

In the loss to Mt. Union, Crilly recorded her 11th dou-ble-double of the season with 16 kills and 14 digs, but the team only hit 11.7 percent for the match.

Crilly and McFadden helped pull the team out of its slump with a 3-0 victory over Baptist Bible College Tuesday evening in the Long Center. The standouts combined for 23 kills and 20 digs to propel the team to a comfortable victory.

Senior setters Juli Woods and Emily Klein also chipped in and combined for 32 as-sists as the Royals improved to 13-7.

McFadden’s nine kills in Tuesday’s match makes her only 20 kills away from 1,000 career kills. She would be-come one of seven players in Scranton women’s volleyball history to reach this goal.

The Royals will be back in action this weekend at Goucher College, where they will compete in the first round of Landmark Conference round-robin play. The Royals meet Catholic University at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, followed by Sunday’s game against Goucher at 10:00 a.m. and Susquehanna at 12:30 p.m.

Volleyball rebounds from 1-3 weekend

CARMINE GERRITY-GEMEI

Sports Correspondent

MARK ECKERLE Staff Writer

16 THE AQUINAS

IN THIS ISSUE

ALSO INCLUDEDTennis teams win both season openers

Volleyball bounces back from weekend play

Tie ends men’s soccer win streak

Golf continues to cruise in the fall

Women’s soccer wins four straightSportsTHURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2012

MEN’S SOCCER

9/29 @ Merchant Marine Academy

6 p.m.10/6 @ Susquehanna

2:30 p.m.

UPCOMING SPORTS

GOLF

9/28 @ Wilkes 1 p.m.

WOMEN’S SOCCER

9/30 @ Farmingdale State 2:30 p.m. 10/6 @ Susque-hanna 12 p.m.

TENNIS

Women - 9/29 @ Lebanon Valley 12 p.m.

Men - 9/29 @ Kutz-town 3 p.m.

FIELD HOCKEY

9/29 vs. Wells Col-lege 12 p.m.

9/30 vs. Keystone College 12:00 p.m.

Cross-country places in top half of shoot-out

EMMA BLACKSports Correspondent

Field hockey wins, revives season The field hockey team

rebounded from a two–game losing streak Satur-day and Tuesday by de-feating conference rivals Goucher College and Im-maculata University.

The Royals traveled to Goucher in Towson, Md., with hopes of earning a much-needed confer-ence win Saturday, and that is exactly what they did. Sophomore forward Cassie Mullen got the scoring started at the 15-minute mark. Senior captain Gretchen Kempf added two goals of her own, scoring right before and right after the half.

First-year Meghan Ke-arney scored the first goal of her collegiate ca-reer to help seal the win for the Royals. Scranton’s defense stood its ground the entire game, shutting down Goucher’s offense and allowing only two shots on net. Sophomore goalkeeper Krista Mundy recorded her first shutout of the season.

The Royals opened their stadium to the Im-maculata Mighty Macs Tuesday night.

The Royals jumped out early just three minutes into the game and never

looked back. First-year Alyssa Whitman recorded her first goal as a col-lege athlete. She was not done yet, because only 18 minutes later she scored another goal to give the

Royals a 2–0 lead. Just a few minutes after her second goal, Whitman set up junior Caitlin Lib-eratore on a perfectly executed two-on-one tap-in goal. Kempf added

to Scranton’s lead just before the half. She also scored another goal less than a minute into the second half.

The Royals had no in-tentions of letting up

on the winless Mighty Macs and added goals from sophomore Jessica Pankey, senior Corinne O’Kane and first-year Bryn Frankhouser. With the game out of reach,

coach Colleen Moyer took out her two senior captains to give others a chance to showcase their play.

The Mighty Macs kept fighting, however, and managed to squeak a late goal past goalkeeper Maria Begliomini. Both Scranton goalkeepers played and shared time equally. Scranton outshot Immaculata 35 – 8 for the game and won the con-test 8 – 1.

O’Kane, who scored her second goal of the season against Immacu-lata, said she was pleased with the team’s ability to bounce back from a two-game losing streak.

“We were really upset with the way we played last week,” O’Kane said. “We had a great week of practice and had a great game against Goucher College on Saturday. To-night it just seemed like everything was clicking, and I think our team re-ally needed a game like this.”

The field hockey team has a long weekend ahead. The Royals play Saturday at Fitzpatrick Field against Wells Col-lege (2-5). They will also play a Sunday home game against Keystone College that was postponed ear-lier in the season.

“...Either, we heal, now, as a team, or we will die as individuals.”-TONY D’AMATO, “ANY GIVEN SUNDAY”

THE AqUINAS PHOTO / EMMA BLACKTHE UNIVERSITY’S fi eld hockey team celebrates Tuesday’s win against Immaculata University. The Royals defeated Immaculata 8-1 and pushed their winning percentage back over .500.

VOLLEYBALLLandmark Confer-

ence Round Robin @ Susquehanna

9/29 3:30 p.m.9/30 10 a.m., 12:30

p.m.

#theAQview

The steps:1. Take and Instagram a photo corre-sponding with the weekly theme.2. Include #theAQview in your caption.3. The AQ staff will pick the photo with the best perspective.4. The winner of a free T-shirt will be announced in the next issue.

*Make sure your profile is set to public.*

This week’s theme:A photo of the city of Scranton taken from campus.

Be the vision to our voice.

Last Week’s winner is Lauren Garbe!

Log onto our Facebook page to see her photo.

The men’s and women’s cross-country teams had strong performances at the Jack Daniels Shoot-Out Saturday. The women’s team placed third with 105 points in the eight-team race, while the men’s team finished fourth out of eight teams with 122 points. Junior Cara Notarianni led the Royals, finishing the 4,000-meter course in 15:36.70. She placed 18th overall out of 152 runners. She has now run in the last three consecutive races after running only one event in her freshman and sophomore years because of injuries. “It feels good to be able to contribute to the team,” No-tarianni said. “It was tough not being able to run consis-

tently for the past two years, but I think my patience has paid off. My injuries have made me really appreciate being able to run this fall.” Notarianni said she hopes to continue to improve as the season moves forward.“I am happy with how I’ve been performing, but there are definitely some kinks that I need to work out as the season pro-gresses,” Notarianni said.Other runners placing in the top 50 for the Royals were sophomore Laura Fay, who finished 42nd (16:14.10) and junior Mary O’Neill, who finished 46th (16:18.50). Other Scranton runners included senior Kathleen Druther, who placed 52nd (16.28.80), first-year Abi-gail Roselli, who placed

See “CROSS-COUNTRY,” Page 14

The Aquinas - Sept. 27, 2012

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