Archive for the ‘University’ category

Facebook group invites you to fix Internet speed

February 15th, 2010

 

In just three weeks, more than 1,000 students banded together on a Facebook group to protest the new speed cap on the University’s residential Internet network.

Implemented at the start of the spring semester, the new speed cap for downloading and uploading is set to a maximum of 1.5 megabits per second and 768 kilobits per second respectively, according to the University’s Residential Network Web site.

School of Arts and Sciences first-year student Kevin Song created the group, called “Rutgers Students for Faster Internet.”

Song established the group to convince the Office of Information Technology to change the new Internet policy to something more satisfactory.

Before, the residential network had a bandwidth limit but no speed cap.

“[The limit] was pretty hard to max out, unless you were on the Internet all the time downloading,” said John Compagnone, a School of Arts and Sciences sophomore and member of the Facebook group.

School of Engineering junior Nick Divakar said he had a 1.5 megabit speed cap nine years ago.

He said a quality of service policy should be implemented, which only reduces the bandwidth during certain periods of the day when there is peak usage that actually slows down the rest of the network.

Rutgers University Office of Information Technology Director Frank Reda said numerous complaints from students and faculty prompted the decision to remove the download limit when their Internet privileges were suspended after exceeding the download limit. 

“Providing uniform, uninterrupted Internet access to all students is a fair solution. Now no student will have coursework impacted by suspension of Internet connectivity,” Reda said. “The only potential con is that peak transmission speeds [to the Internet] are slower than was previously available.”

Song said the new Internet policy initially was not a problem for him since it removed the weekly bandwidth limit. He then observed the connection was significantly slower than it had been, he said. 

Song believes the new policy might actually increase the load on the University’s network. 

He speculated it would only take one person downloading non-stop for a week to use up the 100 gigabits of bandwidth, which is 25 times the original limit. 

“In other words, two roommates could use up more bandwidth than an entire floor combined,” Song said. 

School of Arts and Sciences sophomore Brian Meng, another member of the group, believes the University created this policy to make the Internet more accessible to students.

The Office of Information Technology has been working with students who reported issues with slow Internet and is gathering data on exactly why this is a problem, Reda said. 

“We encourage any student who believes that they have a problem with their Internet connection to contact the New Brunswick Computing Services Help Desk,” he said. 

The new policy has affected students in many different ways, Compagnone said. 

“I used to have video chats with my family back home,” Campagnone said. “But with the [new] speed cap, the video quality is horrible, and I can’t really see them.”

But Reda said the speed caps should not affect network resources on campus, or internal University Web sites such as Sakai and University e-mail accounts. 

The ResNet Web site notes that some Web sites affiliated with the University, such as Databases in the Rutgers Libraries page, are not hosted by the University, and are therefore susceptible to the speed cap.

The slower Internet has made it harder for some students to submit homework assignments, use e-mail services and do online research, Meng said.

Divakar said many engineering students need to download a specific program to complete their assignments, and the program took more than an hour to download while with the old policy, the program took 20 minutes to download. 

Reda said while the Office of Information Technology has received complaints from students about the slow speed of their Internet, the office has also heard from other students that they have not experienced any problems with the new Internet policy.

The new policy was first piloted on the Rutgers-Camden campus and received only positive results, Reda said.

The Telecommunication Division also tested the new speed limits by using services like Youtube, Hulu and Netflix and had acceptable results, he said. 

But Divakar said some students have personally seen a significant decrease in the speeds of Web sites like Youtube and Hulu, which are adversely affected by the speed cap.

As the average broadband speed keeps increasing, commonly used Web sites will use more bandwidth as well, which will feel slower as time goes on, he said.

“Perhaps five years ago, that speed may have been acceptable. But now the Internet is indispensable for a college student’s social and academic life,” Song said. 

Richard Deras, a member of the group, said he joined it after becoming aggravated with the slow speed of Internet in the residence halls.

He believes the Internet should be much faster, especially when using computers connected to an Ethernet cable. 

“Ideally, the University should have wireless in all dorms, or at least faster Ethernet speed,” said Deras, a School of Arts and Sciences first-year.

Compagnone believes many students are willing to settle with a return to the old policy, with no speed cap and a bandwidth limit.

Meng said the perfect Internet policy would be unlimited bandwidth with no speed cap.

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Student-run team floats on passion for swimming

November 22nd, 2009

 

For most members of the University club swim team, swimming is more than a hobby — it is a way of life. 

Their dedication paid off at their first, large-scale invitational Saturday at the Princeton University Invitational, where the team placed third out of nine. 

Three members — School of Arts and Sciences junior Kyle Madison, Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy sophomore Andy Sheu and School of Arts and Sciences sophomore Sam Corbett — finished in the top five of their respective races. 

This meet was an important milestone for the relatively new club team, said Madison, the team’s president. Although the team has been to a few small meets, this large invitational helped put the team on the radar.

“Even though we’re such a new team, we have incredibly dedicated and hardworking members,” Madison said. “They definitely deserve this.”

Madison and alumnus Daniel Castellanos founded the team last semester. 

“We knew that there was no more varsity team, but we still wanted to swim and compete,” Castellanos said. 

The team hosted its first home meet in October, Madison said. The University’s team placed second overall. Club teams from The College of New Jersey, University of Connecticut and Princeton University came to the University to compete. 

The team also placed first at a meet in Villanova University and fifth in a meet at the University of Maryland, Madison said. 

While competition is a good motivator for the team members, most of them use their hour-long practices as a way to unwind, Public Relations Officer Corey Herbst-Gervasoni said.

“All my days are filled with classes, studying and more studying. The one thing I get to look forward to is that one hour I get to be in the pool,” Sheu said. 

Herbst-Gervasoni, a Rutgers College senior, knew the Rutgers men’s swimming team would be cut when he started at the University, but thinks the club swim team is a better way to continue his passion for swimming, he said. 

Members of the team love to swim, but they do not feel the pressure associated with being members of a Division I team, Herbst-Gervasoni said. 

Another advantage to the club is that it is student-run, so there are no coaches putting pressure on participants, said Hollyn de Vries, a School of Arts and Sciences sophomore.

“Personally, I love that it is a stress-free zone, where you can make a lot of friends and be involved in something great,” she said.

Different team members have different reasons for joining, De Vries said. 

“People come to practice every day because they want to swim, not because they have to because of scholarships, or their parents or coaches,” Madison said. 

About 90 percent of the team’s members swam in high school teams, Sheu said, and one-third swam in club teams in high school.

“Since we’re peer-coached, we get to learn even more since everyone has a different swimming style and coaching background,” he said.

Although most members do have a background in competitive swimming, the club is open to people of all levels, Madison said. 

For Madison, it is the drive of competition that has him addicted to swimming. 

“That’s the reason I come out every day — I need to get better,” Madison said.

All the members are good friends, with no cliques or special groups dividing them, Herbst-Gervasoni said.

“Every practice is a good time, every meet is filled with really funny memories,” he said. 

The team practices Monday through Thursday, from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Sonny Werblin Recreation Center pool on Busch campus. 

“We’re here because we love swimming,” De Vries said. “[We] welcome anyone else who shares our passion.”

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NJPIRG puts hunger awareness on table

November 18th, 2009

 

University students assumed the roles of people of all nationalities and socioeconomic backgrounds Wednesday night to simulate the discrepancies in food availability between different classes. New Jersey Public Interest Research Group’s Hunger and Homelessness Campaign fed students at their “Hunger Banquet” at the Cook Campus Center to spread awareness about poverty issues. 

Lead Intern of the Hunger and Homelessness Campaign Stephanie Naling said some students think hunger and homelessness is a distant problem only found in impoverished third world countries. 

“The campaign wants to be the voice of the hungry and homeless in New Brunswick,” said Naling, a Douglass College senior. More than 2.5 billion people live in poverty around the world, and 35 million Americans live below the poverty line, she said. 

“You may think hunger is about there being too many people in the world and not enough food, but really, there is enough food to feed every single person on this earth,” Naling said. The real problem lies in the unfair distribution of food, she said. 

The attendees were assigned a different socioeconomic background and then divided into an upper class, a middle class and a low class.

The upper class members were served dinner first, were seated at an elegant table and given unlimited servings of food, Naling said. The middle class members ate next, given unlimited vegetables, rice and beans but only one small portion of chicken, she said. Finally, the lowest class was served only rice and beans and asked to sit on the floor. 

“Are they serious? We don’t get any chicken? But I need meat,” said Linda Kwon, a Cook College senior, who was assigned to be a member of the lower class.

The upper class members, including lawyer and University political science Professor Harold Rubenstein, handed out individual servings to the members of the middle class and gave the lower class just one serving to share among themselves.

The only way food can be equally distributed in the world right now is if the members of the upper class, about 15 percent of the people in the world, decide to give food to people who cannot afford it, Naling said. 

University Professor of the Food Policy Institute Maya Nucci said the media tends to ignore and overlook hunger problems by painting a picture of food accessibility. This can cause disconnect between Americans and the realities of food, such as the way it is manufactured and the unattainability of food many people face, Nucci said. 

The media also ignores famines in distant parts of the world, such as the Great Chinese Famine in 1959, which caused more than 30 million deaths, she said. Despite their large population, some people also tend to ignore the poor because they do not have a voice. 

“As long as the media remains silent about hunger in the United States, hunger will fail to be recognized as a part of society,” Nucci said.

Rubenstein said the government decides a national poverty level, and people who fall slightly above this level are often ignored and turned away when they request help. 

The national poverty level is $33,000 a year for a family of three, which is not always applicable to every state, he said. 

New Jersey has a higher cost of living than a state like Nebraska, and the average cost of living in Middlesex County is above $57,000 a year for a family of three, Rubenstein said.

 

The two biggest costs for the poor are food and housing, and even people who work multiple jobs cannot always afford these costs. There are 49 million people in America who cannot consistently get enough to eat every day, he said. 

Students do not always have money to donate, but their time spent volunteering is far more valuable than any donation, he said. 

The Hunger and Homelessness Campaign believes basic human rights, such as food and shelter, are fundamental and non-negotiable, Naling said. The campaign is working to ensure every single person in the country has these basic rights.

“The problem of hunger is more critical now than people realize because of the current state of the economy,” NJPIRG Intern Alexandra Popovski said.

Many people do not have enough to eat in New Brunswick, and that is not acceptable, said Popovski, a Cook College junior.

“It [might] be more effective to teach students about hunger and homelessness if they were actually made hungry and homeless for a day,” said Ali Salfuddin, a School of Arts and Sciences first-year student. 

The main purpose of the event was to show students what it felt like to not have accessibility to food due to social class, even though there is sufficient food for everyone, Popovski said.

Most of the attendees are part of organizations that work to help the hungry and homeless locally and internationally and have some background on the issue, Naling said.

At the “Hunger Banquet,” attendees had the chance to actually experience how it would feel to be discriminated against, she said.

“It is hard to get out of the isolation and comfort of Rutgers,” Rubenstein said. “[It is also difficult] to look around and realize that even thousands of people in New Brunswick need help.”

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Zimmerli showcases individual talents in late night exhibit

October 8th, 2009

The University is the home of one of the three largest college museums in the country, and the Zimmerli Student Advisory Board is working to expose students to the various forms of art found at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum on the College Avenue campus.

The ZSAB hosted its second “First Wednesdays – Art After Hours” of the year Wednesday at the museum.

ZSAB Chair Mary Greene, a School of Arts and Sciences senior, thinks the University has a great art resource within the museum, as well as a place for students to relax and enjoy a cup of coffee.

“We want the [“Art After Hours”] events to show students how great [the] Zimmerli is, and to make them comfortable enough to just come in on any afternoon and enjoy the atmosphere and the people,” Greene said.

The evening started off with a performance from School of Arts and Sciences senior Ross Lippencott, guitarist of “The N Result.”

“We decided to have [Lippencott] back as a solo artist this month so we could also showcase his individual talents,” she said.
Following Lippencott’s performance, attendees could choose between going on tours of exhibits in the museum, watching a film or attending the poetry showcase.

Alfredo Franco, the museum’s education curator, chose to screen the film “Mechanic to Millionaire: The Peter Cooper Story” by producer/director Janet Gardner because he thinks her movies are not only interesting and educational, but also deliver important messages, he said.

Peter Cooper symbolizes a time of transition for the American economy, from small shops to larger corporations, said Princeton University Professor Sean Wilentz.

Cooper played an important role in that transition, building large, successful companies by never fearing to take risks, Wilentz said. He lived his life with great social responsibility and took his self-made wealth and gave it back to the community, which is something we can all learn from.

The Zimmerli’s Community Relations Coordinator, Rebecca Brenowitz, said the audience seemed to love the movie.

“It was nice that people were inspired to change their lives based on the life of a man living almost two centuries ago,” Brenowitz said.

“First Wednesdays – Art After Hours” also featured an open mic and poetry showcase. School of Arts and Sciences first-year student Angela Chien and Amber Mirza, a School of Arts and Sciences junior, shared a variety of their own compositions, from sonnets to soliloquies to songs.
Rutgers College senior Jewel Lim said it was great seeing such talent among her fellow students.

“This is my last semester at Rutgers. I wish I had known about this and gotten more involved, everyone was so expressive and moving,” Lim said. “It makes you realize that there are beautiful souls out there.”

School of Engineering junior Mike Maffei was also impressed by the amount of talent and diversity of University students. After performing a cover of a song, he decided to sing one of his own compositions.

“I know I’m not as lyrically inclined as all of you here, but I’ll give it a go,” he said.

In addition to University students and the New Brunswick community, the ZSAB also invited East Brunswick High School seniors to experience Art After Hours, Brenowitz said.

“We had about 60 EBHS students here tonight. … [We] were really excited to show them how much Rutgers has to offer in addition to great research, fun sports and strong academics, she said.”

EBHS senior Khyra Lammers called the experience bizarre.

“It was weird, in a good way, to be in such a cool museum, but still knowing you’re in a college,” Lammers said. “I feel like I should be in New York City or something.”

Attendees were able to take tours of exhibits throughout the night.

The ZSAB chose to conduct tours of the “Trailblazers of the 21st Century” exhibit, one of Zimmerli’s newest exhibits, as well a “Highlights of the American Gallery” tour, which board members chose because they don’t think enough people visited and appreciated the American gallery, Greene said.

“I really liked the American wing, we heard interesting stories about the paintings and the history behind it,” Lammers said.
All in all, the event was successful in the eyes of the ZSAB, Greene said.

“We’re always trying to get more students into the museum, and I think we’re really making progress,” she said.

One of the main objects of the Student Advisory Board is to gain a strong following in the monthly events organized at the museum, Brenowitz said.

“Tonight was really special, we showcased all aspects of art, from film to poetry to paintings to photographs,” she said.

The next “First Wednesdays – Art After Hours” will be on Dec. 2, but members of the ZSAB hope students will first attend their Masquerade Ball on Nov. 7, Greene said.

“I don’t think Rutgers has many events as formal as the one we are planning,” she said. “Hopefully people will get dressed up in their finest, and come out to experience something like the [Metropolitan Museum of Art’s] Costume Ball.”

Thanks : Daily Targum

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Art lights up ‘After Hours’

October 6th, 2009

The Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum on the College Avenue campus will be hosting “Art After Hours” from 6 to 9 p.m. tomorrow, as well as every first Wednesday of the month.

Organized by the Zimmerli Student Advisory Board, “Art After Hours” offers students and the local community the opportunity to engage in a multi-faceted approach to the arts, said Community Relations Coordinator Rebecca Brenowitz. The night will feature events showcasing different aspects of art — music, photographs, paintings, poetry and film.

The co-presidents of the Student Advisory Board Rachel Shaw and Mary Greene arranged for School of Arts and Sciences senior Ross Lippencott, a guitarist from the band “The N Result,” to kick off the evening and continue playing through the night.

“[The band] played at our last event; they were really great and it was really successful, so we decided to invite [Lippencott] to play again,” said Greene, a Rutgers College senior.

The guitarist will be followed by a screening of the film, “Mechanic to Millionaire: The Peter Cooper Story.”

Alfredo Franco, the museum’s education curator, said he thinks the movie had many important messages to deliver. Cooper was very involved in art education, which makes this movie relevant, he said.

“Students will see how a very wealthy, self-made person had a sense of social responsibility and felt the need to give back to the community,” he said.
The evening will end with a poetry showcase and an open-mic night, Greene said. People can read from their favorite poets or read their own poetry if they feel comfortable.

“Art After Hours” is also the first day tickets for the Zimmerli Masquerade Ball will be sold, Brenowitz said.

“For just $8, Rutgers students can enjoy an evening as formal and special as the [Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute Ball],” Greene said.

There will be tours of two exhibits in the museum: “Trail Blazers in the 21st Century” and “Highlights of the American Gallery,” said Shaw, a School of Arts and Sciences senior.

“Trail Blazers” is a new exhibit at the museum, showcasing contemporary prints and photographs, she said. “Highlights of the American Gallery” will allow people to view some of the finest pieces from the American gallery, including background stories on them.

Thanks : Daily Targum

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Documentary shows dark side of ‘girls like us’

September 29th, 2009

Coming to terms with sexuality, defining identities and dealing with the difficulties associated with growing up as females, four girls share their experiences of being a teenager in South Philadelphia in a documentary screened by the Douglass Governing Council.

More than 100 University students came to the Douglass Campus Center Monday and watched the film “Girls Like Us,” which followed the lives of high school students Lisa Bronca, Anna Chau, De’Yona Moore and Raelene Cox.

Bronca, an Italian-American attending a Catholic high school, said she originally thinks there is more to love and sex than what she learns in her conservative school, but also thinks that she should remain a virgin until marriage.

But two years later, Bronca’s viewpoints on sex and love change. She does not want to listen to her teachers or mother preaching about abstinence.

“People don’t understand we’re going to have sex anyway,” Bronca said. “They should just come to terms with it.”
School of Arts and Sciences sophomore Kyrie Graziosi said the problem lies in people always telling kids what not to do without ever empowering or giving them the chance to come up with their own ideas.

By the end of high school, Bronca is with a man for five years and planning on marriage.

Moore, a black girl in a performing arts school, lives with her grandmother and is the oldest of many brothers and sisters.

Her grandmother says when she was younger, she had no dreams to become anything; all she wanted to do was have kids.

But Moore is a talented singer and has been singing since the age of three, and she and her friend Khalida are not very interested in boys.

“Maybe God punishes you for having sex before marriage [by giving you a] baby,” Khalida said.

By the beginning of her senior year, Moore is doing well in her music classes.

“She knows what she wants and has a lot of potential,” her teacher said.

But when Moore’s cousin is shot, her grades begin to slip. She fails her senior year and becomes pregnant shortly afterward.

Chau, a Vietnamese-American, tries to blend her parents’ traditional viewpoints on premarital love and sex with the viewpoints of her peers.

“I cannot talk to boys. I cannot walk down the street with boys. I cannot look at boys,” she said.
Chau laments the society’s hypocrisy in differentiating what is acceptable for boys and girls.

“When my brother comes home with hickeys, my parents are proud of him for being a man,” she said. “If I ever came home with a hickey, they’d kill me.”
School of Engineering senior Rayssa Sanchez said she thinks this hypocrisy is what causes young girls to have sex for the wrong reasons.
Women have sex to show that if boys can do it, girls can too, she said.

As the documentary follows Chau through high school, she decides to go against her parents’ wishes and have sex with her boyfriend. She feels guilty, does not enjoy it and decides to stop seeing him and stop having sex for the time being.

Cox is the final girl featured. She has a baby girl in the beginning of the documentary after becoming pregnant at 14 years of age.

“I had sex [for the first time] when I was 12. My boyfriend was 16. I don’t know if it was rape, but I stayed with him anyway,” she said.

She becomes pregnant twice throughout the documentary. While her first pregnancy ends in miscarriage, she gives birth to a second girl in the film.
Cox drops out of school in order to care for her baby. Her mother did too many drugs to be trusted with the care of a child, she said.

“I’m going to let my daughter do and be whatever she wants to. I’m not going to make her do anything,” she said.
Due to having multiple boyfriends, she is not sure of the father of her second pregnancy.

“There’s a reason for this baby; God wanted me to have it. I couldn’t live with killing it,” she said.

Cox moves to the Poconos with her fiancé when she is 18 and spends her days taking care of her two children and his two children.
But her fiancé is different from her previous boyfriends; he does not hit or treat her badly, she said.

“I feel like I still made something of myself. I wouldn’t change the past at all,” she said.

United Black Council President Vanessa Adegbite was surprised to see how little women know about themselves.

“They define themselves based on the men in their lives,” said Adegbite, a Douglass College senior.

President of the Douglass Governing Council Jennifer Kanyamibwa organized this event with the intention of bringing together many diverse organizations at the University to discuss empowering women.

“The only way to progress is for diverse women to come together and understand each other, to empower each other,” she said.

Kanyamibwa, a Douglass College senior, hopes that after watching the documentary and participating in the discussion that followed, different organizations will contact each other and plan programs together with the intention of empowering one another and spreading diversity.

“I think that in each of the characters you can see a little of yourself,” she said.

School of Arts and Sciences junior Brady Yocom realized the four girls in the documentary were aware of the consequences of their actions but chose not to stop.

They were all good people, but one thing led to another and they found themselves in troubling situations, she said.

Valerie Weiss, a School of Arts and Sciences sophomore, believes part of the problem is the way the media has begun portraying teen pregnancies.

“There are two to four drama television shows that follow pregnant teens,” she said. “They kind of make it seem like it’s OK for teens to get pregnant and that it’s easy to raise a baby as a teenager. I feel like they’re giving the wrong message.”

After watching this documentary, many of the students realized they should do something to help girls stuck in similar situations.

“It’s important to take the information we got today and use it to help the kinds of girls we saw in the movie,” said Peggy Yu, president of Alpha Kappa Delta Phi and Douglass College senior.

School of Arts and Sciences sophomore Lisa Goeen agrees.

“We got to college for a reason,” she said. “We need to mentor these girls.”

Thanks : Daily Targum

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