There once stood a great, well-loved, decrepit white pine in the center of campus. The EERC tree (originally ‘the Leaning Pine’) living in front of the EERC building was cut down on August 17. It seems that there should be some sadness or sorrow surrounding
the EERC tree’s death but it is widely understood that its hulking, leaning being was becoming a threat to public safety.
The pine simply could not survive its isolated environment.
It was quite obvious that the end was near for this old fellow, with his many dead and dying limbs and severe lean. The decision to cut down the tree was handled by Facilities Management. “There were few negative reactions. Most folks realized that safety precedes sentiment,” says Director of Facilities John Rovano.
Forester and Lecturer James Schmierer (undergraduate from 1994-98) remembers betting
with his friends at the beginning
of each term whether or not the Leaning Pine would fall. “I usually bet in favor of the tree — that it would persist for another quarter”. Although the community will never know how long a leaning tree will lean before it lays down.
There are many ideas for what to do with the pine now. Some requests are to make benches for the memorial garden
next to the Rozsa Center or use some of the wood for a sculpture to place on campus. Some “slices” have been requested
for posterity. Facilities Management have stored several
large servings of the pine and plans to parcel them out as requested.
It has been decided another
Michigan white pine will be planted in the EERC tree’s place. Irrigation and electricity
have been added to the area. Now there will be a lighted
white pine at the center of campus. Of course there will be maintenance for this new tree placed in the same urban landscape with the same additional
stresses. Perhaps in another one hundred years Michigan Tech will have it’s leaning tree back. For now the student body will have to find a new candidate for Winter Carnival Queen.
For more information, read the August 18 Tech Today.

As soon as the snow melted in Houghton, a tidal wave of messages and pictures swept Michigan Tech’s campus. Unless you stare at the sky all day, when you walk through campus you must have seen the multitude of chalk drawings! With dry, bare sidewalk exposed there was no hesitation on the part of students and organizations who were eager to color the gray sidewalk. Among the messages lately have been religious advertisements, event dates, and even thousands of digits of Pi!
As a penny pincher, I am ever looking for spare change on the sidewalk, therefore I notice almost every chalk design that I walk across. I find that the messages have varied intents but for the most part they are informative and humorous. Michigan Tech Policy allows chalking as long as it “takes place only on sidewalks, not buildings… identified as sponsored by University Community Member… does not deface a previous chalk drawing … and is non-permanent, non-threatening, and non-discriminatory.” Curious about what others thought, I took to the streets to find out how the rest of the Michigan Tech Community felt about chalking.

Read the full story

March was Women’s Month at Michigan Tech. As a way to celebrate women and their beauty and intelligence, several events were held across campus during the month. The last event, held on Wednesday March 31st, was a fashion show called Fashion That Works. The event was hosted by The Center for Diversity and Inclusion, and ran by senior Victoria Peters (Communication and Culture Studies.)
The show involved a lot of work, and help from the community. Victoria approached local clothing vendors, offering them the unique opportunity to donate clothes from their store to be worn by models in the fashion show. The models got to choose two outfits from stores like 20 Below, Shopko, and Maurices. Each outfit was modeled on the catwalk on Wednesday. Many models chose to buy the outfits they modeled because they liked them so much! “This was a great way to get the audience interested in local stores and the great clothes they sell for decent prices,” one model said.
The fashion show proved two things: that women at Tech are smart and beautiful, and that it is possible to look great in any situation, whether casual or business formal, when working with a budget “I was so proud of my models in the fashion show!” Victoria said after the show. “These women represented the full range of smart, talented and beautiful women we have here at Michigan Tech, from the students to the faculty and staff. These women are accomplish so much in their careers and education that their participation in the fashion show celebrates the fact that women can be interested in fashion and still maintain successful professional lives. Fashion doesn’t have to be a silly luxury but something that all women can be interested in and have fun with! Your work wardrobe doesn’t have to be full of boring neutral colors–you should be able to get excited getting dressed for work with all the fun Spring fashions headed our way,” says Victoria.
Victoria considered the event a success, and already has plans for next year’s show. She would like to see more involvement from Finlandia Design students, and even raise money for a non-profit organization that celebrates women’s health and health awareness.

Friday, February 18, 2010 two vans parked and waited in the valet circle of the Hilton Hotel in Madison, WI only a few blocks away from the State Capital Building. The occupants of the vans anxiously waited until a few members emerged from the hotel lobby and waved them in. It was then that students from Michigan Tech flooded into the hotel for what was to be Midwestern Bisexual, Lesbian, Gay, Transgendered, and Allied College Conference (MBLGTACC) 2010.
MBLGTACC is an annual gathering of college students in the Midwest who are LGBT or supportive. The program started in 1993 with its first conference at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. The conference was originally titled the “Midwest Bisexual Lesbian Gay College Conference,” but was amended to add Transgender and Allies in 1998 and 2001, respectively. In the past, conferences have had over-arcing missions to them; this year, the mission was “Get Real: Confronting Privilege, Provoking Dialogues, and Building New Foundations.” According to the MBLGTACC web site, this mission “means real discussion on racism in the queer community, instead of ignoring it. Get Real means real inclusion of transpeople, not just adding them to the back of our acronym. Get Real means voices will be heard, privilege will be challenged, and lives will be changed.”
The conference was host to over 80 different workshops spread over six different time slots, five of which were scheduled for Saturday. The workshops were all presented by volunteering students and speakers who were themselves attending the conference. The workshops were organized into several different tracks, including Allyship, Faith and Spirituality, Health and Wellness, Politics, Organizing, and Activism, QPOC (Queer people of Color) Issues, Dating and Relationships, Transgender Issues, and University Life.   The workshops included lessons, discussions, and activities, including Jumping In Head First: How YOU Can Start an Activist Group, The Idiot’s Guide to Asexuality, Media’s Marginality: TV’s Effects on LGBT Student Self-Perception, L@s Jot@s y Las Artes (Queers in the Arts), Beyond Binaries: Identity and the Sexuality Spectrum, and Fighting Bible with Bible: Christianity’s Queer Traditions.

March 21 marked the first day of spring and first calendar day of the Iranian New Year. Deeply rooted in tradition, Nowruz is the festival celebrated when the sun crosses the celestial equator, equalizing night and day. Iranian families all around the world observe this special holiday with fun festivities. Nowruz translates to “now day,” and the word “now” may have influenced the English word “new.” The holiday was originally a Zoroastrian celebration-some believe it was invented by Zoroaster himself. It remained an important holiday even when Islam became a major Persian religion, and is observed today by both Muslims and Zoroastrians.
The 13 day long festival begins with an extensive “spring cleaning,” where families clean the entire house and buy new clothes for the year. They also buy and grow flowers to celebrate the rebirth of nature that accompanies spring. The next 12 days consist of visiting family members and friends, beginning with the elderly members of the family, and so on. These house visits are usually reciprocated. Gifts are exchanged, and family members sit around a special table called Haft Sin. This table represents the seven elements of life: Fire, Earth, Water, Air, Plants, Animals, and Human. Each table holds items that represent important qualities of the New Year, namely rebirth, affluence, love, medicine, health, sunrise, and patience.
On the twelfth day, all families leave their house and picnic outside.
The festival of fire is also celebrated at this time. It is celebrated by building bonfires, and jumping over them while singing. It is believed that by jumping over the fire you are giving it your fear, in return for the fire’s warmth. The very last day of the festival is spent purging the household of bad luck. Families will serve fruits, nuts and pastries to their community to celebrate kindness. Many Iranians believe that if you are kind and gracious to your friends and family on Nowruz, you will be greeted with kindness and good luck throughout the year.

This Saturday, March 27, environmental advocate Majora Carter came to the Rozsa Center. Carter, who founded the non-profit organization Sustainable South Bronx and is president of the for-profit consulting company, The Majora Carter Group, LLC, spoke about environmental justice and its effects on people.
Carter began by telling about her childhood growing up in the South Bronx. At the time, her neighborhood was considered a terrible place to live, due to practices such as “redlining” (where bankers would refuse to lend money to an entire region, causing everything in that region to fall into disrepair) and the “dumping” of much of the city’s waste processing there.
Years later, when she returned after having living elsewhere for some time, she noticed the extent of the neighborhood’s poor conditions. After a walk with her dog, during which the dog “pulled” her past an illegal waste dump and to the Bronx river, she was inspired to seek a grant to renovate the area. Over five years, she and other community groups managed to develop that dump into a clean, safe waterfront park.
Carter then went on to explain many of the benefits of the work she and her groups do. Much of her work has a direct environmental benefit: for example, the “green roofs” that they promote reduce runoff and reduce heat emissions of buildings.              Many of the benefits of their projects, however, are social in nature, hence the term “environmental justice.” For example, by taking in former convicts, training them, and putting them to work on environmental projects, Sustainable South Bronx keeps people out of jails and trains them to be productive members of society, Carter explained.
The projects have other benefits, too: Carter cited a study comparing people living near trees to people living in similar conditions with no green space. The study showed the people living near trees scoring significantly higher on several social instances, such as crime rates, teen pregnancy, and student test scores.
Carter finished by showing some of the other projects her company works on, such as installing green roofs and creating greenhouses for communities to grow their own food. Following the end of her lecture, Carter invited the audience to ask questions.
Majora Carter was the last part in the Rozsa Center’s lecture series for the 2009-2010 year.

When Roy Ashburn, the Republican Congressman from California, was outed by receiving a DUI while leaving a gay nightclub, it was oddly…not surprising at all.  Ashburn, whose anti-gay voting record continues even after the incident, merely joins a long line of conservative, homophobic politicians who have been outed in a homosexual scandal of some sort.  Whether meeting up with their favorite hustler or enjoying leather night at the local gay bar, the far right never ceases to amuse, enrage and shock the general public with secretive homosexual antics.  Why is it that the most actively homophobic leaders are the ones exposed in these scandals?  If those making the principle arguments against homosexuality are any indicator of the integrity of anti-gay rationale, I’d say the future is bright for the gay and lesbian community.
I would like to take this opportunity to address those who are disappointed and angered by Ashburn’s recently revealed sexual orientation.  Perhaps you should be more concerned that he was roaring drunk on a weekday, rather than the fact that he’s gay.  Of all the opinions offered on this scandal, nearly no one has addressed the Congressman’s apparent drinking problem.
However, when the sensationalism of the event wears off, how are we to view these hypocritical, double-life leading politicians?  Many, both left and right, condemn them for lying to constituents.  Some take pity on them and denounce the homophobia that has forced these people, mainly men, to lead a double life.  Either way, Ashburn’s dilemma presents a fascinating ethical dilemma.  How exactly should the gay, lesbian and straight ally community receive the news of Ashburn’s scandal?  Should they reach out to their new, however homophobic, community member?  He is, after all, the recipient of the same discrimination which unites them all.  Or should they denounce him as a hateful, twisted politician who persecutes the very group he identifies with?
Admittedly, my first reaction upon hearing about Ashburn’s DUI-outing incident was pure, unbridled amusement.  There is supreme satisfaction when such a fervent anti-gay politician reveals the hypocrisy that underlies so much of the homophobic rhetoric; his personal website declares him a “champion of openness [and] accountability”.  Years of personally promoting a homophobic agenda lost all of its legitimacy the night he was arrested.  Now, by his own admittance, he is merely a vehicle for the majority of his constituents, despite having personally experienced the repercussions of his legislation.  I’m guessing then, if the majority wished to legalize sacrificial cat killing, Ashburn would actively promote it.  Who cares about the cat owners: minorities don’t need to be fairly represented, right? Ashburn, along with Mark Foley, Bruce Barclay and Troy King, create a sometimes sad, sometimes humorous collage of undercover gay Republicans.  Like an absurd, dark comic strip, conservative men-in-power relieve us from their predictable politics with the scandalous color of secretive homosexuality.  It is a classic scenario, the politician fallen from grace, that so deliciously entertains us.
After I had a good laugh (and forwarded the news to all my friends) I began to consider the incident more closely.  When I thought of the deep confliction Ashburn must have been experiencing all the years leading up to being outed in such a public, humiliating fashion, I did pity him.
The hypocrisy that now surrounds Ashburn is a testament to the complex and dangerous monster of homophobia.  Although Ashburn’s justifications for his politics may never be fully understood, it is all too easy to make the connection between his anti-gay efforts and the persona he assumed to hide his sexual orientation.  It’s also encouraging (or perhaps disturbing) to consider how many other vehement anti-gay activists may be facing similar struggles with their sexual orientation.
However, it has been shown time and time again that no amount of anti-gay activism can truly change a person’s psyche; it only makes their struggle more painful and ultimately more damaging.  The closet is not a place of healing; it offers nothing but comfortless solitude.
When we see Roy Ashburn’s political role reduced to a puppet of a destructive majority, his family forever transformed, and his credibility beyond recovery, it requires us to respond with compassion.  It isn’t precisely known what extreme societal or familial pressure Ashburn faced throughout his life caused him to repress his sexuality.  The amount of guilt and fear he felt cannot be measured.  To label Ashburn as a hypocrite or bigot is to oversimplify the complexity of human emotion.
And yes, politics are emotion.  Values are emotion.  To separate emotion from any human activity is to absolve that very activity of its humanity.  Roy Ashburn could not make this separation and the fact that he professes to be able to legislate without the foundation of emotional and moral commitment is pitiful.
All of this caused by a bizarre, unnatural aversion to gay people.  The closet has never looked darker.

Walking into a common grocery store yields a rainbow for the eyes, year round. Tomatoes, carrots, lettuce and fruits no matter the time of year. No doubt we are largely privileged to have a plethora of fruits and veggies at our access, but it is relevant to consider how such a phenomena came to be. Also to be considered are the implications, the effects, of the transportation of such foods.
It is definitely cheaper to purchase foods that are in season, locally or from a different part of the country. Cheaper for us because the veggies and fruits are more plentiful when they are in season. Also, we can make deals with local farmers and support their farms (especially at the farmer’s market).
When you get a tomato ripe off the vine it tastes so much better than a tomato picked prematurely and then ripened over time, while traveling and being cooled.
Eating locally is excellent but of course there are varieties of foods in season even during winter in different parts of the country. Although it’s not most favorable to have food take a road trip to your mouth it gets a bit hard to eat locally all year in a wintery place such as Houghton.
It can be argued that you become more in sync with the earth and the cycle of the seasons when you eat what is naturally provided. More apparent, buying in season automatically opens doors to considering the community and how buying local helps a community thrive.
Eating foods that are out of season means that the food was grown in artificial conditions or imported. It takes a great deal of energy for either option but especially to import foods, especially sensitive foods. In order to meet demand, produce may be grown in areas; it would not be growing naturally and extra care is needed, such as irrigation and usage of large amounts of water. This is very problematic for people with a lack of water. “Agribusinesses growing crops for export are claiming more of the water once used by family and peasant farmers for food self-sufficiency.” (Maude Barlow)
In short, doing a little homework and applying a bit of mindfulness to shopping can yield better results for yourself and especially others in the world at detriment to our convenience.
If you really want some fruit for later, I suggest collecting ahead of time and freezing some for later use.

In the Wadsworth hall lounge, several students were eagerly discussing plans and possibilities while behind them, other students were drawing. Muffins had been baked as snacks. It was a meeting for the fledgling student organization A.R.T., which stands for Art Revolutionizing Tech.
A.R.T. is a student organization dedicated to increasing the level of culture presented and available at Michigan Tech, as well as the creativity and appreciation of art within the student population. In the words of President and co-founder Sarah Piccard, the purpose is to counter the stereotype of boring engineers and “show more of the artistic sides.” Through this, they also hope to create a more friendly and more open campus as well as a greater feeling of community in the halls and academic buildings.
The organization started last fall semester when five students in the Pavlis Institute came together. One of their assignments in the course of their work in Pavlis was to design a sustainable project, and the desire for more art was a common calling to all of them. They created plans for the creation of the organization, and when they were finished they found that they felt strongly enough about the cause to execute the plan. They created a constitution and procured the proper funds, and created A.R.T.
The organization is very new, and as such its current projects are relatively small. Currently, they are in the process of obtaining postal-themed artwork to display near the mailboxes and placing a display case in the Wadsworth Hall lobby and cafeteria. However, these projects are not without challenges; much more planning is needed, as well as art contributions from students.
“We’re looking for people with art that they want to display around campus,” said Public Relations officer and Co-Founder Joe East. A.R.T. States that they have the means to display artwork and are willing to order prints and display artwork with or without name at the wishes of the sender. In return, willing students would be able to have their art displayed and receive visibility and publicity on campus when they otherwise might not be able to.
The criteria for art that is to be displayed is that it is appropriate; the hall or building manager must approve of any artwork. Within those conditions, however, Joe said that the organization is “looking for any art.”
So far, A.R.T. has had some success and some plans that could not be executed. One of the ideas that A.R.T. had was to set up bulletin boards in the cafeteria that anyone could post artwork to.
However, that was dismissed due to difficulties obtaining permission in addition to problems protecting students’ artwork and maintaining the board. However, A.R.T. has also gained some influence; Housing asked the organization to help provide artwork and input for the new residence suites that are in construction behind McNair Hall.
Joe encourages students to join A.R.T. He says that work is on a volunteer basis, and students can expect to get out what they put in. “If dedicated, [students] can do incredible things.” He extends an invitation to everyone to come to a meeting, which are regularly held every other Wednesday in the Wadsworth Cafe at 6:00 PM..

Events for cultural diversity have grown in size and dominance on-campus. Overflowing to the Houghton community, the parades, musical and dining events, performances, speeches, and organizations have given Michigan Tech students and Houghton residents a multitude of opportunities, almost weekly, to engage in a cultural besides their own. The advent of many of these informative and often celebrative events may be due to one of the newest educational opportunities on-campus—The Diversity Minor.
In 2003, faculty and administrators gathered to address the “diversity problem”, namely the low numbers associated with recruiting and retaining diverse students, faculty, and staff on Michigan Tech’s campus. The outcome, initiated three years later, passed through the Department Administration, the University Senate, and then more administration. Michigan Tech’s response to the “diversity problem” is the relatively new Diversity Minor.
Rhetoric from the proposal to the University Senate argued that an inclusion of diversity studies in Michigan Tech students’ curricular options would address the recruit/retain issue as well as provide an opportunity to educate Michigan Tech students about diversity in the United States.
“The faculty, students, and courses in this minor could have a campus-wide impact far greater than just the number of students selecting this minor might suggest. Such a minor could help to improve the climate for underrepresented groups on campus and, thus, could help with recruiting and retaining underrepresented students, faculty, and staff.” –Senate Proposal 15-07 submitted January 2007.
The Diversity Minor offers students a chance to experience and explore diversity in an academic context but some of the additional benefits expected by the Diversity Studies Committee are the “Ripple Effects”. Mainly, the establishment of a committee dedicated to implementing and supporting courses, events, and organizations on-campus that offer students opportunities to venture into an academic discourse in a variety of contemporary topics in U.S. diversity.
One of the cornerstones of the Diversity Minor is the belief that “problems are more often solved by the collective effort of people involved in many smaller initiatives.” An academic approach is not the “one hundred percent solution” and instead the committee will supplement instead of run, replace, or claim jurisdiction over the on-going efforts of cultural groups that have already been well established at Michigan Tech and in the Keweenaw area for many years.
The Diversity Studies Committee has been busy this year already and the opportunities for students to become active and informed about diversity topics and concerns is increasing. A short list of ten activities pursued by the Diversity Studies Committee this year follows: