the
Herald By and for the students of Hobart and William Smith Colleges
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2009
VOLUME CXXXI ISSUE 6
GENEVA, NY
“We Can Beat This, But We Can’t Coast Through It” By Jennifer Hollander ’10 Advertising Editor The financial situation of the Colleges is not entirely pleasant, but President Gearan is optimistic that it will get better. He explained that endowment for the Colleges has decreased 20 percent; the endowment encompasses 5 percent of the budget. The Presidents of local liberal-arts colleges- including HWS, Union, Swarthmore, and Hamilton- recently met to address the growing concerns that students, faculty, and staff are having. It is President Gearan’s belief that, while the situation is not pleasant, the Colleges will overcome it. There has been a hiring freeze for new staff and faculty and tuition rose 3.4 percent within the last year. However, this is the smallest increase in forty-four years. In the end, he wants the HWS community to have hope. After all, he explained, the Colleges have gone through two World Wars and Hobart went through the Civil War. This is not the first time, and it will not be the last time of financial difficulty for Hobart and William Smith Colleges. He explained two dimensions that affected the financial situation for this fiscal year. The first was that the incoming class of 2013 was smaller than
anticipated. The reason for this, he believes, is that parents are short on money and cannot send as many students to college as would like to attend. The second reason is a greater need for financial aid. There was a hope for a 9 percent increase of funds for financial aid; in reality there was only a 4 percent increase. Gearan further went on to elaborate that he does not believe students in need of aid should go unaided. He will do anything possible to give students needing financial aid as much as possible. A total of $2 million of financial aid was added into the financial aid pool as compared to the last fiscal year. He feels that by doing so, the long term result of having educated people is its own reward. Even with the decrease of incoming firstyears, he assured the quorums that there was a greater influx of transfer students to the Colleges. The needs of the students, faculty, and staff are extremely important to the President and the Board of Trustees. He has further made a commitment that the faculty and staff will remain in place as they are invaluable assets to the Colleges. What was deemed
HIV Vaccine Trial Wins Modest Victor y
Photo Courtesy Of: www.hws.edu
On Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2009, President Mark Gearan recently presented a realistic-but utlimately optimistic- report of the Colleges’ current financial situation at a joint meeting of Hobart Student Government and William Smith Congress. unnecessary funding was cut so that important needs such as financial aid and student life remain.
He mentioned that a task force COAST continued on Page 3
DayS of Ser vice Helps the Community
By Olivia Carb ’11 Herald Contributor
Photo courtesy of: http://filipspagnoli.files.wordpress.com
Depicted above is the estimated number of people in the world living with HIV/AIDS in 2008. Thirty-three million people were living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) at the end of 2007. That same year, 2.7 million individuals became newly infected while 2 million died. September 24, 2009 introduced a glimmer of hope that soon the world will be able to keep HIV infections at bay. Funded by the National Institutes of Allergy & Infectious Diseases, the United States Army Medical Research & Materiel Command Institute, the trial was the largest in history. Costing 105 million
dollars, the trials followed 16,402 volunteers (aged 18-30) who were recruited from two provinces in the southeast of Thailand’s capital, Bangkok. For morality purposes, prior to the study, volunteers were given condoms, taught how to avoid infection, and were promised lifelong antiretroviral treatment if they became infected. After combining two genetically engineered vaccines, half of the subjects were inoculated with a series of 6 inoculations of HIV continued on Page 2
Eleanor Blase/ Photographer
DayS of Service volunteers help Geneva by participating in the Finger Lakes Institute’s Beach Cleanup on Saturday, Oct. 3. The first DayS of Service event happened on Oct. 3, gathering a total of one-hundred and forty students with fifty of them going to the Special Olympics event alone. DayS of Service is on its seventeenth year; it has been such an integral part of the campus relations with Geneva and other areas. The students who participate are greatly admired by the Geneva
Community as the whole event is dedicated to serving Geneva’s needs. Students woke up early in the morning to breakfast on the quad. There, they gathered and met their site leader who helped to guide the group in its site assignment. One site, Trinity church, had students doing repair work, SERVICE continued on Page 2
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