The Daily Free Press
Year xliii. Volume lxxxiv. Issue XXXVIII
ART THOU GREEN? Sustainability@BU teams up with artists to go greener, page 3.
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Tuesday, April 2, 2013 The Independent Student Newspaper at Boston University
IN YOUR BLOOD An easier blood test is in production stages, page 5.
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NIETO’S NEXT
Matt Nieto is ready for the next level, page 8.
WEATHER
Today: Partly cloudy/wind/High 43 Tonight: Clear/Low 24 Tomorrow: 45/29 Data Courtesy of weather.com
Sexual Assault Awareness Week launches at BU Years after recession, By Rachel Riley Daily Free Press Staff
Monday marked the kickoff of Boston University Center for Gender, Sexuality and Activism’s first ever Sexual Assault Awareness Week, designed to open dialogue on sexual assault concerns and to make students aware of available tools, officials said. “In general, sexual assault isn’t something that is talked about in the public sphere a lot,” said Chelsea Schwalm, CGSA health resources coordinator and organizer of the week. “This is something that is taking it a step further to really delve into more complicated issues in sexual assault that maybe haven’t been addressed in past years.” Schwalm, a College of Arts and Sciences junior, said the week includes nightly presentations hosted by representatives of various participating organizations, including BU’s Sexual Assault Response and Prevention Center, the Feminist Collective and the Queer Activist Collective. “The thing that should be remembered is that everyone feels differently and wants to talk about this topic in different ways, so it’s really important to have different resources for people,” Schwalm said. The week will culminate with Take Back the Night on Friday at 5 p.m. at Marsh Plaza. Take Back the Night first came to BU in March 2012 after a series of reports of sexual assault on or around campus. “It’s a survivor-centric event that we also have open to the community, open to the pub-
Mass. job numbers finally bounce back By Kyle Plantz Daily Free Press Staff
MARISA BENJAMIN/DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF FILE
This week, the Sexual Assault Response and Prevention Center at Boston University is holding a Sexual Assault Awareness Week culminating with the second “Take Back the Night,” last year’s pictured here.
lic, for people to come hear stories of survivors talking about experiences of sexual assault and to have a group cathartic experience to take back the streets,” Schwalm said. Other presentations scheduled for the week include an Anti-Street Harassment Workshop and Chalk Walk presented by Hollaback! Boston, a “Queer Survivorship” Panel on Sexual Assault for the LGBTQIA community and a presentation on “Social Media, Video, and Technology Related Sexual Misconduct.” “A lot of the activities are to help people that
have been impacted by sexual assault in some way to not feel so isolated,” said SARP Director Maureen Mahoney. Mahoney said organizers intend for the week both to address culture surrounding sexual assault and to inform students of available sexual assault response resources. “One [goal] is to bring awareness of the culture that can promote sexual assault,” she said. “Also, to offer people who have been impacted by sexual assault in any way different ways of
Awareness, see page 2
To reduce waste, Boston City Council considers compost By Kayla Canne Daily Free Press Staff
Acknowledging the importance of composting excess food scraps in addition to separating trash from recyclables, Boston officials presented a proposal to City Council Wednesday that would institute a curbside compost pick-up program wherein scraps of food would be sold to local farmers to use as fertilizer and to landscape city parks. City Councilor Matt O’Malley, of Jamaica Plain, and Councilor At-Large Felix Arroyo are spearheading the campaign and said they expect the program to be widely supported when introduced in a public hearing and reviewed by the city. “[The proposal] was almost unanimously supported,” O’Malley said. “The vast majority of my colleagues signed on as co-sponsors, so we decided to call for a hearing order and we’ll be bringing all of the pertinent state-holders into the room to talk about what options are out
there and how the city can play a role in developing composting capabilities in Boston.” At the hearings in the coming months, city officials will discuss the plausibility of running a compost pick-up service using the materials and resources they already have, Arroyo said in a press release Monday . “It wasn’t that long ago that single-stream recycling was a new idea and now it is a successful program in our city,” he said. “By introducing composting, we can reduce the amount of trash that ends up in our landfills and we can sell or use the compost collected as fertilizer.” In October 2011, the city of Portland, Ore. launched a curbside collection service for compostable items that shifted garbage collection to every other week, according to a report by the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability from Dec. 5. The program yielded a 38-percent decrease in the amount of residential garbage collected curbside just a year after it was put in place, ac-
cording to the report. O’Malley said after seeing the success of single-stream recycling in Portland, composting seemed like the next reasonable step in helping the environment. “We just started doing the single-stream recycling five or six years ago and it’s just taken off like wildfire,” he said. “We see so many more people recycling, aware of what it takes, familiar about how you go about recycling, and it’s really just been a great success in Boston.” Like recycling, a composting program could help create revenue for the city, O’Malley said. He said the economic benefits of composting would become apparent once the program is put in place. “It’s one of those great confluences, in that it’s a great thing to do and it’s right for the environment, and also can generate revenue after a while,” he said. “There may be some small administrative costs at first as we begin this
Compost, see page 2
Almost five years since the recession hit the Commonwealth and the nation, the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development announced March 26 that Massachusetts finally surpassed pre-recession employment levels in February. Massachusetts’ seasonally unadjusted unemployment rates for February 2013 were down in 21 areas and up in one, according to a press release from the EOLWD. The seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate for February set unemployment at 6.8 percent, down from 7.4 percent in January, according to the release. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate, which was released Mar. 21, was at 6.5 percent, down from 6.7 percent in January, and estimates a 500 net gain of jobs in February, according to the release. Seasonally adjusted unemployment rates are used to smooth out the data and eliminate the influx of recurring seasonal jobs that could affect employment numbers. Seasonally unadjusted rates see a rise and fall of jobs at various points throughout the year due to weather. Kevin Franck, communications director at the EOLWD, said these statistics put Massachusetts back where it was economically before the recession hit. “As of February, we now have more jobs in Massachusetts than we did when the recession hit, which was April 2008,” he said. “Job numbers started going down and for the first since then, we now have more jobs than at the peak of the recession.” Despite the drop in unemployment, Franck said there are still issues that need to be addressed. “We still have a lot of issues out there, especially with people who have been unemployed for a while and younger people looking for jobs,” he said. “Even though it is evident that Massachusetts is recovering and faster than other states.” In February 2013, six areas in Massachusetts had job gains, but six others recorded a loss, according to seasonally adjusted job estimate statistics. The Boston-Cambridge-Quincy area, for example, saw an increase of 2,200 people employed between February 2012 and February
Jobs, see page 2
Higher education may not help bridge gender wage gap, study suggests By Paola Salazar Daily Free Press Staff
Higher paying jobs boast larger gender pay gaps than less profitable jobs, even among professionals with post-secondary degrees from colleges such as Boston University, according to a NerdScholar study published March 26. “I wouldn’t say higher education is not successfully closing the gap, but rather that in spite of a higher education, the pay gap still exists,” said NerdScholar Strategy Analyst Rachel Ny, the study’s author. Women are more willing to take on debt for higher education degrees only to face larger pay gaps at the top, according to the study. In 2010, 2 million women earned degrees compared to 1.3 million men, but in that year, women earned an average 82 percent of what men did. Ny said while there is debate as to why the gender wage gap appears wider in high-paying jobs, the gap may have to do with different character traits between the sexes. “Studies have shown that males are more
likely to negotiate their initial salary,” Ny said. “… The same studies have shown that men are more likely to pursue raises than females.” As chief executives, women earn an average $76,128 as opposed their male counterparts, who, in the same position, would earn $110,344, the study stated. “Women often have to take maternity leaves and take a leave of absence from work to care for her child,” Ny said. “This can disrupt her work and chances to move up the ladder … The jobs with the widest wage gaps may be set up such that these particular disadvantages are far more apparent.” BU women’s, gender and sexuality professor Carrie Preston said there are discrepancies at the top that cannot be explained by differences in grades or course selection in college. “In many courses … We talk about the wage gap — we discuss some steps women can take, including not being afraid to ask for a raise, talk about their wages and assert their value on the
Wage Gap, see page 2
GRAPHIC BY MICHELLE JAY/DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF
A recent study by NerdScholar shows the difference in salaries earned by women and men.