Last Saturday, Meredith Baskies woke up early and deleted her Facebook. And just like that, the Northwestern U. senior said goodbye to more than 800 friends and countless hours of distraction. “I’m a really private person,” she says. “I didn’t want anyone knowing my business anymore.” Baskies was, in part, triggered by Facebook’s new privacy policy, which rolled out at the end of April. The new settings, which affect almost a half billion people, have more words than the U.S. Constitution (without the amendments) and more than 170 different options users must navigate through. While the new policy means a more personalized Web experience, it also means a more complex and convoluted one.

For Baskies, enough was enough. “I was sick of worrying about what people posted on my wall or what my profile pic was going to be,” she says. “And I was really sick of the creepers friending me.”

In response to the confusion over the site’s latest round of privacy changes, Facebook announced Monday they will soon offer simpler privacy settings. “Now we’ve heard from our users that we have gotten a little bit complex, I think we are going to work on that,” said Tim Sparapani, Facebook’s director of public policy, in a radio interview Tuesday. “We are going to be providing options for users who want simplistic bands of privacy that they can choose from, and I think we will see that in the next couple of weeks.

So what exactly does the new privacy policy entail?

For one thing, you’ll no longer be able to list obscure or specific phrases under your interests. Instead you are required to opt for generic terms because all interests must match a corresponding page, or a “Community Page” that brings together “people who like this” (the new term for “fans”). Previously, the pages users were a “fan” of were separate from their interests and “likes.” The integration now prevents users from listing interests under their activities, television shows, movies or other things they like that do not have a corresponding page. Take cooking, for example: Previously, you were able to list “cooking” as an activity you liked, but your name was not added to a “Cooking” page. (You also used to be able to become a “fan” of cooking.) But now, the new Cooking page will publicly display all users who list cooking as an activity.

Facebook’s new “Open Graph” aims to provide users with “instant personalization” by encouraging outside websites to exchange personal information. The site gives three “trusted” sites—Yelp.com, Pandora and Microsoft Docs—access to its “gated” network. If your personalization settings are left in default, visit Yelp.com and the site can find out which of your Facebook friends are on the site and then display recent reviews and photos they’ve uploaded. Additionally, sites used to be able to store information about Facebook users for up to 24 hours. Now, new laws give sites access indefinitely to such information.
The newest default settings are the least private in Facebook’s five-year history, says Canadian software developer Joe Dee. Previously the default setting was within networks and much more private. “It’s kind of like going and unlocking your door,” he says, “and anyone walking in and seeing your life. A lot of people don’t know their doors are open right now.”

Perhaps the biggest dilemma concerns the widespread lack of knowledge concerning privacy controls, says Northwestern Prof. Noshir Contractor, who studies social networking.

“If someone knew enough, they would have the ability to put their privacy settings the way they want,” he says. “But most users are not educated enough. They’re smart people, but the system changes too rapidly. Unless we set aside time to constantly monitor the ever-changing nature of social networking sites, we run the risk of exposing our information simply because we were not informed.”

Of course, the progression of privacy controls is the nature of the beast, Contractor says. “Facebook has faced privacy issues from the time it started out,” he says. “Any social networking phenomena forces society to confront issues of privacy. It was the same case many years ago with Social Security cards.” But Facebook hasn’t made anything easier, says Matt Pizzementi, a software developer based in San Francisco.

“Facebook does provide a lot of these privacy settings, but it’s just too confusing to navigate,” Pizzementi says. “There are people who want everything to be public, but that should be a completely opt-in feature.”

The opt-in/opt-out debate is an old one, he says. Still the conversations continue, Contractor says. “For the vendors, opt-out is a better option because it allows them to build a larger network very quickly,” he says. “But from the users’ privacy point of view, opt-in allows a more controlled environment.”

Shortly after the new settings launched, the backlash began. Last week, the Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission in reference to “Open Graph.”

“The biggest problem is that Facebook collected personal information from individuals without any notice,” says John Verdi, EPIC senior counsel director. “Based on our technical analysis, at a minimum, Facebook released all users’ friend lists.”

The social networking site has not been transparent about what information it has released. “Was more information disclosed?” he says. “We don’t know.”

With Pandora, users who sign in can view their friends’ stations and music tastes. “It sounds like an interesting service that people might want to take advantage of if they had the option, but that’s not what Facebook did,” he says. “They just sent off all the data to Pandora so the next time people logged on, they saw all the information on all of their friends.”

During last month’s f8 Conference, Facebook developers said “Open Graph” partners were trustworthy, and they were confident in their decision. “But what’s particularly problematic is that Yelp has already encountered several security problems, and Facebook has had to yank data,” Verdi says. “Obviously, those three trusted partners turned out not to be so trustworthy.”

While Verdi doesn’t know how long it will take to investigate, he says the FTC must decide if Facebook deserves fines, penalties or must restructure some of their policies.

“At this point there’s a real question with what Facebook can do and what it ought to do to treat users fairly,” Verdi says. “It’s a complete mess, and it’s going to be a difficult thing to fix.”

Dee says he’s tired of trying to fix Facebook’s privacy controls. While he’s worked in the “interactive space” for 13 years with the goal of creating an engaging online experience for the corporate world, he recently left “to impact society with a more hands-on approach.”

“With these new privacy settings, Facebook didn’t really seem to be too concerned with how we felt as individuals when it came to privacy,” Dee says.

So Dee collaborated with software developer Matt Milan to develop Quitfacebookday.com, a new site that encourages Facebook users to delete their profiles on May 31. It currently has almost 6,000 “committed Facebook quitters,” but Dee says there have been many more visits to the site.

Of course, Quitfacebookday.com isn’t alone. Nearly a dozen other websites, including FacebookProtest.com and YourOpenBook.org have jumped on the bandwagon persuading Facebook users to delete their accounts or be more mindful of their privacy settings. YourOpenBook.org allows anyone on the Web to type in a keyword and search all semi-open Facebook status updates. Users are presented with a list of Facebook profile pictures, names and the status containing the keyword.

“As far as I can tell, it allows people to search Facebook status updates the same way you can search Twitter,” Pizzementi says. “It’s highlighting the fact that people talk on Facebook differently. On Twitter, they know they’re doing something very public, but on Facebook, they’re a little more confused and revealing more information than they would because they think it’s private.”

Pizzementi launched ReclaimPrivacy.org, a program which checks major Facebook settings, on Friday afternoon and circulated it to a few of his closest friends. This website provides a tool for scanning your Facebook privacy settings by simply dragging the site to your bookmarks bar, opening Facebook and clicking on the bookmark icon. “When Facebook released their new changes last month, I went back and checked my privacy settings,” he says. “I wasn’t really happy with the new defaults, but I knew it was too complicated to explain to the less techy population. I wanted an easy way for people to see what they’re exposing and fix that if they want to.”

By Monday, Lifehacker, a popular technology blog, had picked it up, and soon the site was circulating faster than Pizzementi could keep track of. Massive traffic eventually caused the site to crash.

“I had to enable billing,” Pizzementi says. “Originally, I had just used a free hosting account, but because so many people were logging on, I couldn’t maintain a free site anymore.” Pizzementi estimates at least 200,000 people have now used the privacy scan, and the number is growing every hour.

“A site like ReclaimPrivacy.org is very simple for someone to install,” Dee says. “If they can do that, why isn’t Facebook taking a similar approach?”

While the site makes it easy to check your Facebook’s privacy settings, it’s important to note that it’s not perfect. Pizzementi says he has yet to add a privacy check for photo albums, though he hopes to release it in a few days.

Contractor doesn’t see the controversy slowing anytime soon. “It will eventually get better,” he says. “But this technology is in a stage of flux because Facebook is at the frontier.” The key is to tune the knobs with relative ease, he says. “Society is debating the trade-off between the benefits that might accrue by having access to information and the potential liability of that information being abused by someone else.”

It’s based on a dual-effects hypothesis, Contractor says. “Any technological change has to be good and bad at the same time,” he says. “The role of society is not to say it’s bad, but to encourage a debate that allows us to come to some agreement of where to draw the line the next time we revisit issues of privacy.”

While the privacy debate rages on, there are those like Baskies who believe completely opting out is the only answer. But it’s important to note the difference between deactivation and deletion. Deactivating means you can still be tagged in photos and be spammed by Facebook (make sure you opt-out of receiving e-mails as part of the deactivation). And as soon as you log back on, your old page will resume as if you never left. To actually delete the account, you have to find a link buried in the on-line help. Contractor isn’t even sure that’s safe. “No one can really commit Facebook suicide because the site still owns all the information,” he says.

But when it came down to it, it wasn’t only privacy policy that motivated Baskies decision. Sooner or later we have to grow up, she says.

“I’m about to graduate, I’m getting a new job and a new apartment,” Baskies says. “Deleting Facebook was the last chapter. It was so high school, so college, and it’s so over.”

After entering Mira Salon and Spa in Bloomington, Ind., a customer is greeted by a receptionist and a small sign that reads, “Thank You for helping us contribute to the oil spill clean-up.”

It appears there is something different about this salon as Anna Stoddard, a Mira Salon and Spa employee, sweeps the wooden floors. She makes sure to separate hair from the other trash that is collected. In fact, hair at Mira has its own trash can.

Hair salons and pet grooming facilities across the nation have been collecting hair clippings to send to the Gulf of Mexico to help absorb oil from the hazardous tank explosion that occurred April 20. Bloomington is no exception.

For the past two weeks, Heather Singleton, the owner of Mira Hair Salon, has been separating salon trash from hair into two 30-gallon tubs in the back of the salon and just sent out her first barrel last week.

“I heard about this from a client and I said, ‘Oh wow, what a great idea,’” Singleton said.

The ambiance at Bloomington’s Delilah’s Pet Shop is slightly different. Instead of soothing music and humming hair dryers, customers are welcomed by the excited barks of puppies and the subtle sound of a fur shaver.

Leslie Henderson-Miller, co-owner of Delilah’s Pet Shop, heard about the oil spill and knew that something had to be done.

A friend told Henderson-Miller about the nationwide hair collection. The idea inspired her to start her own separation of trash from hair.

“We go through it (fur) like it’s water,” Henderson-Miller said. “We can easily fill up a 30-gallon trash bag in a day.”

However, she did not know where the hair went or how to ship it out.

“We’re collecting it, and we’re going to keep it in bags in the back,” Henderson-Miller said. “We just have no idea where we send it.”

Singleton’s salon has been sending out hair clippings through a nonprofit ecological charity, Matter of Trust.

Matter of Trust was established in 1998 and concentrates its efforts on man-made surplus, natural surplus and eco-education, according to the Matter of Trust website.

“There are over 300,000 salons in the US alone,” wrote Lisa Gautier, founder of Matter of Trust. “This is a community-building and extremely pleasant way for the general public to be involved in helping the environment.”

The nonprofit agency created a YouTube video showing various salons and pet shops throughout California collecting and boxing hair to send to Matter of Trust. After the first week, the agency had received more than 400,000 pounds of hair donations to send to the Gulf of Mexico, according to a May 4 press release from the agency.

“The public response has been amazing,” Gautier said in a press release. “We are getting hundreds of nylon and hair donation registrations an hour.”

Donors are asked to register through the Matter of Trust’s website so the agency can ensure the hair is being sent to areas that need it most.

After receiving the hair, volunteers stuff it into nylon stockings, which are then tied together to make “brooms” that surround and contain sections of the gulf while soaking up oil.

The act of collecting the hair — especially for salons — is simple, Singleton said.

“We’re cutting hair anyway, so why not just collect it as well?” Singleton said. “I mean, how inexpensive and effective is that?”

Other pet groomers in Bloomington have caught on to this trend. Doggie Styles Canine Salon has just begun collecting hair for Matter of Trust, but has not sent any hair to the Gulf Coast yet, said Kelie Borhan, co-owner and groomer of Doggie Styles Canine Salon.

“It is something we can really do to make a difference,” Borhan said. “We definitely have the hair for it.”

For Henderson-Miller, the hair collection movement goes beyond the short-term repercussions of cleaning up the Gulf Coast.

“I can’t see how people wouldn’t want to save things for future generations,” Henderson-Miller said. “Save it not only for yourself, but for your children.”

When students leave for home in the summer, they take all their spending money with them. This temporary economic vacuum leaves a problem for business owners and student job seekers alike each summer.

“Summer gets especially slow the closer you get to campus,” said Neil Thompson, a night manager at the Jimmy Johns store located near the Indiana U. campus. “Some stores even change their hours depending on where they are in town.”

Thompson said hours were dramatically reduced at his store during the summer, with some employees only working fractions of the hours they worked during the year.

When restaurants and retail stores have to cut back, it means fewer job opportunities for those few students who stay and have to pay rent and utilities.

“I think because a lot of the businesses aren’t making their means up right now with the economic downturn, they don’t have enough income to cover the staff they would normally have,” Indiana senior and current job seeker Robert Ellis said.

He added that of the 28 businesses he’s applied to, many of them have been “cutting existing positions and giving more hours to fewer staff.”

“Going in and trying to find a job at this point means the deck is already stacked against you,” Ellis said.

Summer residents find they have to keep an open mind in terms of types of jobs and numbers of hours given for any opportunity that comes their way.

Recently employed IU senior Benjamin St. John said the only job he could not do was delivery or one out of walking distance, for one simple reason: He does not have a car.

St. John said he thinks the reasons students have such difficulty finding jobs is that employers will keep people who already worked for them during the year and might also want to hire Bloomington residents.

“During summer, some people go home,” St. John said, “but the ones that stay usually keep their jobs if they already work there. So you have people who have already had experience working a job, along with Bloomington residents, to compete with.”

However, some workplaces will take advantage of students leaving to help cut back on summer hours and take them back when fall comes.

Melanie Griffith, a manager at Bloomington’s T.I.S. College Bookstore, said the summer downturn is no different to them than the lack in business they see between the book rushes every semester.

“In summer we still have summer semesters and orientation, so business stays pretty steady,” Griffith said. “We always have something going on.”

Ellis has made some progress in the job hunt, but he has found nothing concrete yet.

“It’s looking up, but I’m not going to be off-edge until I’ve found a place,” Ellis said. “I actually had to drop a summer course in order to save money, and if I don’t get a job in the next month, I’m going to have to sell my car to make rent.”

With one out in the bottom of the seventh, her team trailing by one and a national championship on the line, then-junior Francesca Enea stepped up to the plate and did what she’s done countless times in her U. Florida career — she delivered.

Enea crushed a double down the left-field line, but could then only watch as the final two outs were recorded and the Washington Huskies celebrated their 2009 NCAA championship, dashing Florida’s hopes of winning it all for the first time in school history.

A title has been about the only thing that has eluded Enea in her time as a Gator.

The senior left fielder has set eight Florida and Southeastern Conference hitting records, spent an entire season playing through injury, led the team both vocally and by example all year, directed numerous community service projects and even accepted a marriage proposal on the field.

Despite all that, there’s still one thing Enea hasn’t done: win a national championship.

“Not many teams can say they walked away with a national championship under their belt,” Enea said. “So many girls around here or at other schools have broken records and that’s great, but being able to say that you won a national championship with your team would be irreplaceable.”

Tough as nails

When Enea first set foot on Florida’s campus four years ago, she had no idea her career could blossom into what it has become today.

The then-catcher described herself as just an average offensive player — certainly not someone who would go on to set the SEC career home run record with 61.

“I never thought I would be much of a home-run hitter,” Enea said. “I thought maybe I got lucky whenever I hit one out, so my success the last couple years has kinda surprised me.”

Just looking at Enea’s freshman numbers, it would be pretty easy to assume her assessment was accurate.

During the 2007 season, in which she played just 48 games due to a knee injury, Enea hit a meager .227 with only six home runs and 22 RBIs.

While those numbers may have been a detriment to her career statistics, the lessons she learned from that down year have proven to be invaluable.

“It just taught me that I can get out pretty easily and that sometimes you won’t be as successful as you want to be, but you can’t let that factor into how well the team is going to do,” Enea said. “It taught me to take each at-bat and learn from it, to not get down when I get out but instead learn from every at-bat and every play and that’s what helped me the most.”

Even once she put her freshman season behind her and learned how to deal with her mistakes, Enea continued to face adversity.

In the fall of 2008, she suffered a tear on the same ACL that sidelined her during a stretch of her freshman campaign.

An injury of that nature would typically lead to season-ending surgery, but instead Enea chose to tough it out, playing the entire 2009 season in pain.

She finished the year with 18 homers and a  single-season record 70 RBIs while posting a .339 batting average.

While Enea was battling through injury and willing herself to one of the greatest seasons in UF softball history on just one knee, she still felt sorry for the team more than herself.

“I think it really affected the team more than it affected me,” Enea said. “I felt bad when I couldn’t get to balls in the outfield and I couldn’t make turns running the bases. I just felt I couldn’t be as great for the team as I wanted to be.”

On the surface it appears that the injury has healed and things are back to normal, but there are still numerous occasions where it is obvious Enea will never be back to 100 percent.

During a game on May 8 against South Carolina, Enea spent nearly a minute on the ground after taking what appeared to be a routine swing, clearly experiencing considerable pain.

“Unfortunately I’ve had knee problems all through my life,” Enea said. “As I’m getting older it’s getting harder to deal with but I’m just trying to push myself through. I’m just going through every day taking care of business, seeing whatever doctors I have to so that I can finish the season and do well in my future career.”

Not surprisingly, Enea finished the at-bat and is yet to miss a start this season.

Been there, done that

When a player deals with as much adversity as Enea has over the years, it seems that leadership comes naturally both on and off the field.

In terms of Florida softball, Enea offers a level of experience that only fellow senior Corrie Brooks can match, as they are the only two players who have been through both the ups of a trip to the Women’s College World Series final and the downs of a 22-loss season in their freshman seasons.

While all of the team’s sophomores and juniors already understand the importance of not putting too much pressure on themselves and just trying to have fun in big games like those in the SEC and NCAA Tournaments, only Enea and Brooks can speak to the importance of bouncing back from losses and keeping everything going in the right direction.

“In the beginning of the season Corrie and I talked to them and we said, ‘Listen, we aren’t going to win every game this year,’” Enea said. “We told them that we’re going to lose a little bit more, and how successful we can be is based on how we bounce back from those losses.

“Now we aren’t afraid to lose, we just know what its like and we’re not gonna let that happen.”

It is this hard-working, never-quit attitude that has made Enea not just the player she is today but also the person she is today —  someone who has spent countless hours giving back to the Gainesville community.

Over her four years she has organized the Swing for Cancer event, was the co-chair of the Climb for Cancer Sport Camps and was the catalyst behind the team’s “adoption” of a 13-year-old girl with a brain tumor via the Friends of Jacyln Foundation.

She has also been heavily involved with CAMP Gator, GatorTracks, Habitat for Humanity, the Special Olympics, Miracles on Main, and even squeezes in weekly visits to Shands Hospital.

“I do all that just for the simple fact that I can do it,” Enea said. “The University of Florida provides you with so many outlets to get involved so why not take advantage of it?”

A dream come true

Although Enea will leave Florida with the career records for home runs (61), RBIs (220) and slugging percentage (.646), the most memorable moment of her career might have nothing to do with softball.

In what can only be described as one of the most remarkable Senior Days in the history of UF athletics, Enea experienced not only the traditional festivities but also a surprise marriage proposal that left herself and everyone else in the stadium in shock.

While Enea, her family and coach Tim Walton posed for a picture alongside Enea’s framed jersey and bouquet of flowers, Christian Bruey, a UF alumnus and Enea’s boyfriend of three years, sneaked up behind the group and dropped to a knee.

Enea, who quickly said yes, was taken aback by the presence of Bruey, who gave Enea the impression he wouldn’t be able to attend the Senior Day celebration.

“He said he wasn’t going to be able to make it and I was giving him crap about it for weeks and saying he was going to be in the dog house if he didn’t come on time,” Enea said. “Then all of a sudden I heard someone shout his name out from the crowd and I looked and saw him and he didn’t waste any time, he went right down on one knee and I was just shocked.”

Thanks to some clever planning by Bruey, who first met Enea while doing the radio broadcasts for Gators softball during her freshman year, only a small group of people knew that such a plan was in the works, least of all Enea.

And although the senior was blindsided by Bruey’s unexpected proposal, it turns out the plan was actually Enea’s idea all along.

“I had a dream about it two years ago,” Enea said. “So I said to him, ‘Oh I had a dream that you proposed to me on Senior Day,’ and he said ‘Well that’ll never happen because I’ll never make enough money for the ring you want.’ So I said ‘Yeah you’re probably right,’”

Enea was able to follow the pregame theatrics with her SEC-record-breaking 61st career home run, but she is now only concerned with putting the day behind her and focusing on what is still left to be accomplished.

“It was a great day and I don’t think I could stop smiling, but now the day’s over and I’m just trying to move on and not get distracted by it,” Enea said.

Because with just three weeks to go in her Florida softball career, Enea and her teammates are honing in on the only thing that has managed to elude them the last three years — a national championship.

Even if proposed state funds contained in last week’s state budget update materialize, U. California will still face a sizable budget gap, university officials told the UC Board of Regents Wednesday.

Though Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s May budget revision maintains $370 million in funding for the 10-campus system, Executive Vice President for Business Operations Nathan Brostrom and Chief Financial Officer Peter Taylor told the board that additional cost-saving efforts are required to make up for a roughly 20 percent drop in state funding since the 2008-09 fiscal year.

The two presented a plan already under way aimed at saving $500 million in administrative costs over the next five years that can then be channeled into academics and research funds.

The plan would focus primarily on utilizing the size of the university and its buying power to purchase items in bulk.

Taylor said although the university’s state funding has been able to bounce back after past periods of decreased state funding, the prolonged nature of the current recession has necessitated this move.

“The (state’s) structural deficit is such that we have an obligation, on our end, to understand that the state problems are likely to last for a good three, four, five years and we got to be prepared,” he said in a press conference following the presentation.

“We are at that Rubicon where we got to make a choice in terms of: are we going to continue that kind of quality and service that we got to be known for, or are we are going to change the way we operate … in order to kind of get over that difficult hurdle that is blocking us from achieving growth.”

The move would also focus on centralizing operations at both individual campuses and across the 10-campus system. Brostrom said among the initiatives will be centralizing human resources at each of the campuses to mirror UC Berkeley’s model, as well as centralizing payroll services at all of the UC’s campuses.

The various cost-saving proposals will require “substantial investment,” Brostrom said, noting the costs to bring in a project manger to integrate the payroll system at the 10 campuses and five medical centers.

“There are investments that are necessary up front in order to realize the longer term savings,” he told the board.

The cuts to the system’s administration have been a long time coming, Taylor said, but it took the severity of the current recession to make the proposal a reality. Russell Gould, chair of the board, said even if the increase in funds contained in the revision becomes a reality, the university will still have a $237 million gap.

“It’s very clear, in spite of the governor’s tremendous commitment to us that there is going to be a substantial funding gap,” Gould said. “This just helps erase some of that gap.”

Though Schwarzenegger’s budget also includes an additional $355 million, that money is for UC construction projects and cannot go toward anything else, according to UC Vice President for Budget Patrick Lenz. He said the new funds’ restriction was in keeping with the budget’s focus on creating new jobs. He added that the university faces tough competition in the budget process, but it could still close some of its deficit.

“You can’t compete against CalWORKs, you can’t compete with child service but (the Legislature) can recognize the importance of higher education,” he said.

Each year, millions of people visit Hawai‘i to escape the pressures of life, to sit back and relax in “paradise.” What many tourists don’t realize is that the Islands lose 128 lives to suicide yearly. That averages out to one death every three days, caused by drugs, alcohol and the pressures of life that we face in “paradise.” Another 870 attempted suicides occur every year.

The state Department of Health is trying to reduce suicide rates. From 2004 to 2010, 43 suicides were children between ages 10 and 19, according to a fact sheet released in February 2010 by the DOH. According to the sheet, Hawai‘i is using the $1.5 million grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to train people who have direct contact with youth to recognize suicidal behavior.

These gatekeepers are being trained in prevention workshops across the state. Judy Strait-Jones, coordinator of the Hawai‘i Gatekeeper Training Initiative, said that each workshop averages about 30 people in a two-day applied suicide intervention skills workshop, and targets specific focus groups.

“We wrote a grant for federal funds and we received that grant; it’s called the Garrett Lee Smith Memorial Grant. For three years, we’ll continue to use it,” Strait-Jones said. “We will receive a total of $1.5 million to work on suicide prevention by training gatekeepers, people who have contact with individuals who might commit suicide. First of all, we’re seeking behavioral specialists (such as) … social workers, counselors, clinical psychologists and school psychologists.”

Because of the strong link between alcohol and drug abuse and suicide, contact specialists in substance abuse are also trained in the workshops.

Honolulu police officers also attend the workshops.

“We’re providing a different type of training for Honolulu police officers; they can’t really take two days out of their lives to come to a training, so we’re providing them with (one) that is three hours long,” Strait-Jones said. “Our plan is to train approximately 2,000 Honolulu police officers so they can recognize signs of suicide and respond appropriately.”

Finally, the DOH is focusing on peer-education teachers and their students.

“The DOH has peer-education teachers, and they have students in the (Peer Education Program), where each student takes an elective course at an intermediate or high school across the state,” Strait-Jones said. “The teachers will train their students in a similar program. Students will then create a suicide prevention program and take it out into their schools so their peers can be directly affected.”

Nationwide, Hawai‘i has the second highest percentage of youth – 20 percent – who reported that they “seriously considered attempting suicide.”

Numerous factors can result in suicidal thoughts in youth and adults. Many thought patterns begin at a young age, so prevention should start at home. Greg Browne, program director of Mental Health Kōkua’s Kōkua Counseling Centers, said it takes courage to offer aid to those we notice are in need. As a result, at-risk individuals are scared of rejection or being told “everything’s fine.”

“Basically, it’s not that uncommon to think about ending your own life; a majority of people think about that within their lifetimes. And that thought doesn’t always mean they should seek professional help,” Browne said. “Sometimes, because of culture in Hawai‘i, there’s a tendency not to talk because of older generations and their influence. I’m always encouraging parents to talk to their kids. I emphasize to them to be good listeners. Being a good listener takes skill. Most parents who think they’re listening end up doing the talking – kids tell me that every day.”

Browne says many clients he sees feel unloved.

And with the current economic struggle in our economy, everyone is impacted somehow.

Said Browne, “Everyone needs a little help now and then. Companies are downsizing while our stress level is rising; our children and friends are facing difficulties; our relationships could be better. Recognizing our need and asking others for aid takes real inner strength.”

Maybe asking for a help is what susceptible suicide victims need. This year U. Hawai‘i at Mānoa lost one of its students to suicide.

UH Mānoa is aware of the struggles and demands that students face while attending school, so it has its own Counseling and Student Development Center to assist students experiencing difficult times and promote wellness and personal success.

According to a guide for faculty, students and parents by UH Mānoa psychologist Dr. John Mark Krejci, “more and more college students are suffering from depression, anxiety and even suicidal thoughts and behaviors, among other difficulties.”

New York City has experienced an almost 800 percent increase of bedbug cases since 2008, according to the New York Department of Housing and Historic Preservation. This year, the city has received 13,152 violations.

While these violations only represent renters within New York City, Bedbug.com representative Richard Saffern said college dorms constitute around 10 percent of all cases.

“Most are usually publicized as they get out of hand, because bedbugs spread to both horizontal and vertical dorm rooms as they do in hotels,” he said.

Saffern thinks this spread is inherent in the nature of college dorms because students are in small rooms and tend to have clutter. In the fall semester, several New York City colleges reported bedbug cases. City U. New York school John Jay College of Criminal Justice shut down a building in late September, sending students on a forced break. A Fordham U. student suspected bedbugs in his dorm after finding bites last September. WSN reported on two cases in New York U. housing last semester.

NYU freshman Olivia Cho said a friend in Hayden Hall lost $800 worth of clothing because of bedbugs. NYU senior Stephanie Vivar took no chances and completely sprayed her dorm. She thinks students should take action.

“Their best measure is for people who have bedbugs to remove [the infestation],” she said. “You need to take responsibility and make sure it doesn’t spread.”

Jeremy Ecker of the Bed Bug Inspectors, which sends out dog inspection teams to identify bedbugs and bedbug eggs, said college campuses have employed their services for everything from libraries to dorm rooms.

“To think that a college dorm will be free of bedbugs is wrong,” he said.

Ecker said the company is gearing up for its busiest season ever.

“If needed, we have enough capability to do more work,” he said.