It is easy to talk about going green, but this Earth Day, the Ohio State EcoCar team and 83 Gallery are giving people a chance to experience a sustainable lifestyle at a hands-on event.

Today from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m., 83 Gallery in the Short North will host the Ohio State EcoCar team, its car, and an array of environmentally conscious produced artwork to celebrate Earth Day. A reception will be held at the gallery featuring live music, hors d’oeurves and champagne.

83 Gallery is an independent art gallery located at 1038 N. High St. Their mission according to their website, 83gallery.com is “to create innovative connections between talented artists and potential patrons, while enriching and influencing our community in the process.”

The gallery is hosting the Earth Day reception to showcase environmentally conscious artwork and highlight the OSU EcoCar team’s commitment to creating and maintaining a healthy and sustainable environment.

The EcoCar team at Ohio State is involved in an advanced three-year collegiate vehicle technology engineering competition established by the United States Department of Energy and General Motors, Abbey Underwood, outreach coordinator and fourth-year marketing major, said.

“The competition challenges 16 universities across North America to reduce the environmental impact of vehicles by minimizing the vehicle’s fuel consumption and reducing its emissions while retaining the vehicle’s performance, safety and consumer appeal,” Underwood said.

“Students use a real-world engineering process to design and integrate their advanced technology solutions into a GM-donated vehicle.”

Admission to the event is free, but door contributions and proceeds of artwork sales go to a local charity. Commission will be used to purchase new tires for The Waste Not Center’s cargo van.

The Waste Not Center is a local charity established more than 20 years ago. WNC recycles excess supplies donated by individuals and businesses to teachers, artists and non-profit organizations at the cost of a membership fee.

According to Neil Drobny, general manager of WNC, memberships can cost anywhere from $45 for students, $75 for individuals to $295 a year for an entire school.

“We are reaching a whole new audience through a different type of communication,” Underwood said. “We are not just going out there and speaking with consumers about the environmental impacts that vehicles have on the environment. We are allowing the consumer to get involved and through art depict what sustainability and the environment means to them, something we have never done before.

“Students from the Ohio State EcoCar team reached out to the WNC,” Drobny said. “We had never heard of the 83 Gallery or the team before this. They offered to donate proceeds to us and our van, which is good because we don’t receive enough help from organizations such as these.”

The EcoCar team will end its third year of competition in June where its car will be tested at GM’s Milford Proving Grounds.

WNC has roughly 2,200 members and estimates it receives and put out more than 2,500 pounds of materials a week.

The car will make an appearance at the event today and be on exhibit at 83 Gallery through May 1.

It’s no secret that kids under the age of 18 are denied the right to vote, smoke cigarettes and gamble, among other rights. However, it’s surprising that our justice system, which gives minors limited responsibilities solely because of their age, also holds them to a lifetime of responsibility for actions they’ve done as children.

Currently, American citizens are serving life-sentences for homicides they have committed as young as 13. This measure has been instituted at the bidding of victims’ rights groups which insist that homicides warrant life imprisonments even if they are committed by those who have not yet graduated from middle school.

Victims’ rights group advocates such as Kent S. Scheidegger, the legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, are currently advocating that each case should be considered individually, age being one factor to consider along with the particular circumstances in which the crime was committed. Scheidegger told The New York Times, “Sharp cutoffs by age, where a person’s legal status changes suddenly on some birthday, are only a crude approximation of correct policy.”

This stance goes against the commonly acknowledged claim in the scientific community that young people’s brains are still in the process of development. In fact, immaturity, impulsive behavior and peer pressure contribute to heinous crimes committed by minors more than they do when adults perpetrate the same crimes. A child’s potential for change also offers a unique opportunity for rehabilitation because they are still maturing.

While we at WSN believe that homicides should be punished regardless of who commits them, therapy and rehabilitation would serve our society better than a life sentence, the promise exists for these children to re-enter society as law-abiding citizens once their terms of punishment end. A recent New York Times article quoted Federal judge Michael A. Wolff: “Juveniles should not be sentenced to die in prison any more than they should be sent to prison to be executed.”

To condemn a child, who may hail from a violent upbringing, to death in prison is cruel, unusual and an inappropriate application of adult standards to those who have not yet reached adulthood.

A University of Iowa professor likely won’t face punishment for a controversial e-mail she sent to members of the UI College Republicans this week.

UI anthropology/women’s studies Professor Ellen Lewin’s response to a universitywide e-mail sent by UI College Republicans, which promoted “Conservative Coming Out Week,” has drawn fire for its profanity and what some called a lack of professionalism.

“F*CK YOU, REPUBLICANS,” Lewin wrote in response to the mass message, which provided a list of activities the conservative organization would sponsor this week.

UI spokesman Tom Moore said it is too early to know what, if any, action the university would take against Lewin. But UI Faculty Senate President Edwin Dove said she likely won’t be punished for the comments.

And UI Associate Professor Lyombe Eko, a free-speech expert in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, said Lewin’s statement is protected under the First Amendment, noting universities are not enclaves immune from free speech.

“She is within her rights,” he said. “However, in an academic environment where the stock in trade is ideas, such outbursts can leave a lot to be desired.”

Dove agreed Lewin shouldn’t have responded to the student organization with an expletive.

“There’s an expectation that, when you disagree with a viewpoint, that you do so respectfully in every way,” he said. “Certainly wasn’t very wise.”

On Wednesday, Lewin apologized for her remarks.

“I’m afraid I lost my temper and did something very regrettable,” Lewin said in an e-mail to The Daily Iowan. “I responded to an e-mail from the UI College Republicans with a profanity. It was not appropriate, let alone professional, for me to use it.”

Lewin also sent an apology e-mail to members of College Republicans shortly after the head of her department, James Enloe, sent her a message asking to speak with her immediately. Enloe had been forwarded the messages by Natalie Ginty, the 21-year-old president of the Iowa Federation of College Republicans.

But in a follow-up e-mail to the group, Lewin detailed her concerns. She said several parts of the group’s original e-mail “were extremely offensive, nearly rising to the level of obscenity.”

In that latter message, Lewin also noted Ginty’s use of her first name.

“She referred to me as Ellen, not Professor Lewin, which is the correct way for a student to address a faculty member, or indeed, for anyone to refer to an adult with whom they are not acquainted,” she wrote. “I do apologize for my intemperate language, but the message you all sent out was extremely disturbing and offensive.”

Lewin also criticized the student organization for using the term “coming out,” saying it was “appropriating the language of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights movement.” And the group’s reference to the Wisconsin protests suggested the demonstrations were “frivolous attempts” to avoid work, she said.

A Friday event, called the “Animal Rights Barbecue,” also bothered Lewin, who said it was “extremely insensitive to those who consider animal rights an important cause.” The College Republicans have hosted similar cookouts in the past, which have mocked the advocacy group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals by grilling a lot of meat.

The UI College Republicans faced some criticism in 2007 for hosting a capture the flag game called “Catch an Illegal Immigrant” as part of its second Conservative Coming Out Week. Two teams — the “illegal immigrants” and the “border patrol” — competed.

In response to Lewin’s thread of messages, UI College Republicans faculty adviser Tim Hagle said her apology was half-hearted.

“Your initial apology, though qualified, was at least a step in the right direction,” Hagle wrote to Lewin. “The ‘additional note’ only served to retract the apology and was an apparent attempt to justify your initial response.”

In the midst of the discourse, UI President Sally Mason sent a campuswide e-mail with the subject line “Freedom of Expression and Civil Debate.”

“Student organizations are sometimes formed along political lines and act on their political beliefs,” Mason wrote. “Even if we personally disagree with those viewpoints, we must be respectful of those viewpoints in every way. Intolerant and disrespectful discord is not acceptable behavior.”

Lewin — who studies same-sex relationships and, in particular, gay fathers — wasn’t the only one upset with the group’s use of the term “coming out.”

Adam Lewis, the manager of the UI Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center, said he supports the organization’s right to free speech. But coming out as gay and coming out as Republican are far from similar, he said.

“By coming out as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender, you face the possibility of getting kicked out of your home, your parents’ disapproval, and the majority of religions telling you you’re an abomination for who you are,” Lewis said.

UI graduate student Kristen DeGree said the College Republicans’ use of the term is highly offensive.
“It’s something that’s associated with gay culture,” the 26-year-old said.

DeGree said the methods used by the organization are “quite cynical.”

But John Twillmann, the chairman of the UI College Republicans, said that argument is faulty, because “coming out” is just a term that isn’t copyrighted or owned by anyone.

“It’s being open and honest,” he said. “You can come out, come clean about many things, and we’re coming out about being conservative.”

And Christopher Pickett, 24, said that while there’s nothing wrong with getting the message out, the satirical nature of the Conservative “Coming Out Week” retards the progress of the organization’s efforts.

“By lampooning [the issue], you’re taking away its agency,” he said.

Before last year, UI College Republicans took a two-year break from the weeklong series of events because of the volume of hateful remarks they received.

But on Wednesday, members of the group stood in front of the Pentacrest passing out fake doctors’ notes for students “sick of being stressed,” in an effort to mimic the Wisconsin public workers who used such notes to protest for their collective-bargaining rights.

College Republicans members handed out doctors notes with personalized messages such as “Due to a case of: It’s almost finals,” and “Due to a case of: It’s 4/20.”

“We’re obviously somewhat mocking the union protesters in Wisconsin and how some of them skipped work to go to the Capitol and protest,” Ginty said.

As for Lewin’s remarks, she said, it’s something they’d expect from a student but not a professor.

“When we get an e-mail from a socialist group, do we respond? No, of course not. We delete it,” Ginty said. “When a professor e-mails us some vulgar comments, that’s a little different.”

Today is Earth Day. It’s a great day to clean up a little bit, maybe recycle that old pair of sneakers, think about finding farmer’s markets to visit through the spring and summer or head over to the UConn Spring Fling on Fairfield Way. While considering how creative thinking can benefit the planet, it’s also a great day to consider how other out-of-the-box institutions in our society are also just as important.

If Gov. Malloy had his way, at the end of this year 17 vocational-technical high schools across the state will have lost the state funding that keeps them operational. At this point, control of the building and property would go to the towns in which they are located. The decision to continue to operate these buildings as specialized regional institutions would be at the discretion of the towns. Malloy’s argument is that these schools are a large expense in the state budget, and in most other states, regional councils fund such programs.

Fortunately, the schools are safe for the moment, pending a 10-month study that will evaluate the performance and needs of the vo-tech school system in Connecticut. The sad truth is that most of the schools are stuck with outdated or derelict equipment, and are in dire need of maintenance. On Jan, 15, 2012, the Education Committee will file a report with the state, according to State Representative Michelle Cook. She also stated that the committee’s goal is to seek measures that would improve the schools rather than eliminate them.

Elimination would be one measure that would push education measures in this state backwards, and further burden students at all levels. The mission of vo-tech schools is to provide the same immersion, learning and academic experience as a traditional high school, but to overlay a hands-on technical experience that will aid students in establishing careers upon graduation, or aid them in higher education goals should they choose to pursue them. In high school, these students are learning to work with innovative and adapting technologies, and graduate highly trained in specialized areas such as hvac, green and environmental technology, and even as licensed practicing nurses – a program in this state with a 100 percent job placement rate. How many other programs can boast that? When measuring against more traditional school systems, the vo-tech program is extremely high-performing in comparison.

Also, thanks to an NSF grant and the GK12 federal program, these students work directly with UConn graduate engineering students, not only expanding the skills they develop in high school, but learning how their skills can be applied in higher education institutions. There is a push to have these students attend UConn for engineering, so that the programs can continue to develop and become more innovative on both sides.

Vo-tech schools fill a large gap in our society for students who may just think outside of the box of the ‘test culture’ that has become the mainstream education process. Public education needs to continue to provide opportunities for those who have different interests and are extremely talented at different things. Just as our society tries to protect fine arts programs and magnet schools, we have to protect the vo-tech school system and make sure that these students’ needs are met. If the alternative is shutting down the schools and reaping the potential consequence of any percentage of 10,600 students falling through the cracks of mainstream education, instead of being given the tools to develop their skills, those are consequences we can not afford.

Chris Hondros, N.C. State alumnus, photojournalist and formerAgromeck photographer, has been confirmed dead Wednesday after an attack while covering the front lines in Libya, the Technician has learned.

Getty Images, Hondros’ employer, called his family Wednesday and initially reported he had died after the attack, according to Paul Woolverton, a Fayetteville Observer reporter and former colleague who was with the Hondros family in Fayetteville Wednesday. Woolverton said Getty called the family again Wednesday to report Hondros is still in critical condition, but alive. Later on Wednesday, Getty called the family once again to confirm Hondros has passed away.

“They quit working on him. There was nothing they could do for him,” Woolverton said.

Tim Hetherington, the director of the film Restrepo, was killed in the attack, according to a News & Observer report.

An MSNBC post uploaded around 11:30 a.m. said Hetherington and Hondros were reporting from within the Libyan city of Misratah for the past several days. Pictures on the blog depict rebel fighters battling in the city and carrying wounded soldiers.

Hondros graduated from NCSU in 1993 with a degree in English after spending several years shooting for the Agromeck yearbook. He has returned to the University several times over the past few years to share his photography and mentor local student photographers.

Terrence Jones, Brandon Knight and DeAndre Liggins each declared for the NBA Draft.

None of the three have hired or have announced plans to hire an agent, according to a UK release.

May 8 is the deadline for underclassmen to withdraw from the draft, provided an agent is not hired.

“I support the decision these three have made to take advantage of the process of putting their names in the draft,” UK head coach John Calipari said in the release. “They were a joy to coach this year and I would love the opportunity to continue to coach them again next season. I will always support my players in weighing their options and doing what is personally best for them and their families.”

Knight, a projected lottery pick and ranked No. 5 by Draft Express, averaged 17.3 points and 4.2 assists per game. He set the UK freshman scoring record, scoring 657 points, and was named a Freshman All-American and the NCAA East Regional Most Outstanding Player.

Calipari told Mike DeCourcy of Sporting News that the return of Jared Sullinger, Harrison Barnes and Perry Jones — who all were projected to go in the the top 10, if not the top 5 — pushed Knight firmly into the top-10 range. Calipari said he was finished gathering information on Knight, and a top-10 selection looked certain.

“How can I say no to that?” Calipari said.

“Playing in the NBA has always been a dream of mine and this is the next step,” Knight said. “All season long coach has been tutoring me on the fine points of being a point guard, and now I have an opportunity to put my game on display in front of NBA scouts as a result of my hard work.”

Jones averaged 15.7 points, 8.8 rebounds and 1.9 blocks, and was named Southeastern Conference Freshman of the Year by conference coaches. He is a projected lottery pick.

“Coach Cal and the rest of the staff pushed us all year long and helped us develop every part of our game to help prepare us for this point in our lives,” Jones said. “This will be a great chance for me to measure my skills against some of the best in the country and receive additional information on where I fit into this year’s draft.”

Liggins averaged 8.6 points and 4.0 rebounds and was named to the SEC All-Defensive Team. He is looking to play his way into the first round at the NBA Combine.

“I’m excited about the opportunity to enter my name into the draft, putting me one step closer to realizing my dream,” Liggins said. “Growing up in a tough environment in Chicago, it’s a pleasure to have an opportunity to do something special. This is another challenge I’m looking forward to, to have my game evaluated by pro scouts and see how I rank against some of the top players in the world.”

Go to Willy T, look around at all the students hunched over their laptops. All of these individuals are at the library to “study,” right? No, of course not. These students turn on their computer and immediately log onto Facebook.

No one needs a summary on what Facebook is. Why? Because almost every single student on this campus has one.

Facebook has become a part of us. We basically live two lives, a real life and a virtual life on the Internet.

In real life, we’re not as quick, clever or witty as we would be in the world of our online persona. In real life, we’re not always seen in the most flattering light or angle while we’re always approvingly tagged with a photo on our online world.

It once was less likely for individuals to have online personas. I can remember back in 2004 when kids would ask each other: “Can I Myspace you?”

Ask any young adult if he or she has a Myspace and you’re now more likely to encounter a “What?” Facebook is the main addiction of our generation. It takes energy out of our living life and puts it into a false, imaginary world of the Facebook realm.

I’m not trying to blast Facebook. I know what it feels like to compulsively check your notifications on an hourly basis, hoping to see that someone commented on your oh-so-clever status or wrote on your wall.

It is also a fact that Facebook does have societal value as a tool to utilize, like long-distance friends to correspond over thousands of miles.

What I believe is that Facebook has shown to cause problems with socialization in real life. We “friend” people, “chat” with them for hours on end and then feel the obvious awkwardness when you meet in person.

If we can learn to focus primarily on real life, we can perhaps have a healthier relationship with our Facebook page. And of course, I will be posting a link to this online as soon as I’m done.

After waiving his preliminary hearing in court Wednesday, Harvey Updyke Jr., the man accused of poisoning the Toomer’s oaks, told the Opelika Police Department he was assaulted in the parking lot of Tiger Express on Hwy. 280 in Opelika.

Updyke said he arrived at the gas station between his 1:30 p.m. court appearance and 2 p.m. Updyke told police he thinks more than one person assaulted him, and he never saw them.

Updyke was treated at East Alabama Medical Center and said he was punched in the face and received several small abrasions and scratches.

After receiving treatment, Updyke said he went back to Tiger Express to see if they had surveillance video of the incident.

Updyke said he is interested in seeking prosecution for the people who attacked him if they can be identified.

Glennon Threatt, Updyke’s lawyer, called the Paul Finebaum show after the incident.

“Somewhere right outside of Opelika, Harvey stopped at a gas station to get a drink and some gas, and when he got out of his car, it went black,” Threatt said. “He woke up on the ground. He had been hit in the head with something, so he wandered into the gas station in pain, and they directed him to a local emergency room. He responded to that emergency room. He has got facial bruises and a split in his brow.”

Updyke didn’t require stitches, Threatt said.

According to Threatt, a Montgomery news station received a phone call saying Updyke had been stabbed, so a reporter in the area went to East Alabama Medical Center and saw Updyke bleeding.

Threatt said he believes the person who assaulted Updyke was the person who called the television station.

Threatt said he was not with Updyke during the incident.

“I had nothing to do with my client getting assaulted in a gas station in Opelika,” Threatt said. “If I was involved in it, I would have arranged to be there.”

College students are becoming less empathetic and more narcissistic, and the key might be in technology.

Cell phones, social networks like Facebook and other sources of constant information seem to impact young people’s moral judgment. But according to recent research, it’s less in how the technology works, and more in how it’s used.

A joint study between researchers at Western Kentucky University and Flagler College found students who used social media in self-promoting or self-involved ways tended to be more narcissistic and less nuanced in their moral reasoning.

“It’s not as much about the usage as about the attitudes,” Meghan Saculla said.

Saculla, one of the two researchers and a graduate student at Flagler College, to The Chronicle of Higher Education earlier this month.

The 279-student survey defined self-absorbed behavior as posting exorbitant numbers of pictures or focusing status updates on the self. Men were more likely to do so than women even though they use technology less.

Saculla worked with W. Pitt Derryberry, an associate psychology professor at Western Kentucky University and the study’s primary investigator. Both presented their findings to the American Educational Research Association two weeks ago.

An important consideration is causation, both researchers said. Their findings only related a certain use of social media and narcissistic characteristics, finding a correlation between the two. They didn’t mean one caused the other.

More narcissistic individuals, for instance, could simply find an ideal platform in media like Facebook, the researchers said, an idea supported by faculty at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

“I suspect that people choose their communication media in ways that best meet (their) needs,” Dawn Braithwaite, chairwoman of communication studies, said. “Communication is goal-directed.”

If the goal is self-promotion, then students’ use will adjust accordingly, whichever medium they choose.

“It’s not Facebook, necessarily,” Braithwaite said. “But it makes it easier.”

Still, the findings fit an emerging pattern of slumping empathy among college-age individuals even as narcissism rises. According to research by Sara Konrath of the University of Michigan, the focus of a Scientific American article published early this year, empathy has been on the decline for three decades. Whether it’s an effect of technology, a change among generations or how much people read, college students care less about others on average than in the past.

Derryberry and Saculla pointed out in their paper that narcissism has been on the rise since before technology began to stretch into the public consciousness like it has today. Because of this, they said, it could be that the favored cause-effect arrow is backward, and narcissism changed the use of technology even as it developed.

But Jenna Stephenson-Abetz, a UNL communication studies graduate student who has studied social network use, saw some possible effects in how people approach social media specifically. Students, she said, tend to be very deliberate in the image they project.

“It’s a space where they can completely be very, very selective,” she said.

They try to create a specific image, she said, one that has to appeal to friends, family and coworkers. That takes strategy.

“(The findings) wouldn’t surprise me, given the thought and time that goes into maintaining the profile,” Stephenson-Abetz said.

All of that effort is in the name of preserving public face, Braithwaite said, an intent that filters students’ use of social media and can create the appearance of excessive self-focus.

“Usually the picture that people paint on Facebook is relatively positive,” she said. “Most of us communicate in a way that preserves our face.”

Students who use social media as a means of self-promotion also exhibit less of an ability to morally reason outside of themselves, called post-conventional reasoning, according to the researchers.

With pre-conventional and conventional reasoning, individuals base moral decisions on external rules, laws, rewards and punishments. Advancing to post-conventional basically means moving to more overarching ethics and perhaps empathy, or doing things for the good of others.

Empathy and actions on behalf of others have actually been found in previous research to decline the more heavily populated an area becomes. Braithwaite said Facebook and other social media could potentially create a similar feeling in students simply through their connectedness.

“I think it does expand your neighborhood,” she said.

Technology can also decrease personal interaction, which Stephenson-Abetz said was supported by her own research. Media like Facebook and Twitter eliminated what she called “surface conversation,” or small talk about the goings-on in others’ lives.

Whatever technology’s effect, researchers agree on its involvement in these patterns. Still, Michigan’s Konrath found some optimism in the decline of empathy and rise of narcissism.

“The fact that empathy is declining means that there’s more fluidity to it than previously thought,” she told the magazine. “It means that empathy can change. It can go up.”

Respect is endangered. Common courtesy is declining. Maturity levels have plummeted. The evidence of these truths can most clearly be observed in the classroom of an institute of higher education.

It is an unfortunate truth that the behaviors of students toward their instructors have moved from being collaborative and constructive to callous and demeaning. Instead of eloquent debates, students demand their opinions be held high and mighty. Instead of learning from mistakes, students argue at the top of their lungs for one extra point on a test. It is gravely disappointing to watch the entitlement generation turn college courses into high school classrooms one would only see on an exaggerated television series. In an attempt to save civility, I would like to use this letter to pay my utmost respect to an instructor who the University is privileged to have.

This is my third term taking the second-year American Sign Language sequence from Peter Quint, and it has truly been an honor. As a member of the deaf community, Quint offers students the unique opportunity to immerse themselves in deaf culture. Students are given the chance to learn firsthand about creating a positive environment for equal language access. If anything, my classes with Mr. Quint have taught me just how much of a struggle members of the deaf community must endure to gain this. In the classrooms of a hearing-dominated world, Quint could not be paid enough for the work that he does.

I believe Quint’s best attribute is his incredible sense of compassion. He is understanding of students and maintains a positive attitude through both highs and lows. His sense of humor is engaging and an amazing asset to helping learn the language. Quint is open to feedback and is continuously looking for ways to improve as an instructor. He is passionate about what he teaches because he understands the greater impact educating has beyond the classroom walls.

I encourage all students to take a stand. Prove to society that we are not dwindling into a mass of barbarians. Show that we have manners and that we understand how to express gratitude. We must stop belittling those who teach us and instead raise them up and acknowledge the immeasurable value they bring to our campus. Be an advocate. Pay respect to an instructor who, most likely, is too often overlooked. These are the people who are opening up the world to us, and they are doing it because it is what they love to do.