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CA L I F O R N I A P O LY T E C H N I C S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y Cal Poly students dumpster dive for a cause.
University Jazz Bands invites audience to come swing.
IN aRTS, 9
IN NEWS, 7
Volume LXXIII, Number 130
Is it the right time for John Madden to retire? IN SPORTS, 16
Thursday, April 23, 2009
diversity on campus series
www.mustangdaily.net
Journalist lays out global warming causes in everyday terms Zach Lantz MUSTANG DAILY
Why not approach a solution to climate change by breaking the issues of global warming into smaller, more manageable pieces? Barbara Levi, co-editor of the book “Global Warming: Physics and Facts,” introduced the causes, concerns and possible solutions to climate change in a speech at Cal Poly Tuesday night. “It was an excellent talk,” physics professor Randy Knight said. “I thought it was a really clear presentation of the ideas, it certainly generated a lot of questions and discussion afterwards.” Levi, a member of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and senior editor at Physics Today, went into great detail of the natural causes of global warming including solar cycles, ocean atmospheric circulations and orbital variations of the earth as it travels around the sun. “A lot of people hear the term global warming and climate change (and) they really don’t know what it means,” Knight said. “She gave, in layman’s terms, a really nice presentation of what’s really happening.” The key point in Levi’s proposed plan to help combat global warming was her idea of “wedges.” These wedges will be divided into the total expected increase in carbon emission see Speaker, page 2
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When abroad means Cal Poly: International students face adjustments to Calif. culture alex Kacik MUSTANG DAILY
Cal Poly business student Celia LaCelia Lausson looks and acts like many students on campus. But once Lausson speaks, she reveals her thick Swedish accent. While the 23-year-old international exchange undergraduate shared her thoughts during a group project, she was immediately isolated by one of her peers because of her gender and accent, she said. “For the first time in a long time I actually felt that a guy looked down on me because I was an international girl,” Lausson said. “He kind of didn’t listen to me... I’m pretty outspoken and know what I want, so I got really mad at him because he didn’t listen to my ideas. (Maybe it was my) thick accent or because I am a girl; I don’t know if there was some feminine or masculine thing. I haven’t met that anywhere else.” Although Lausson said she does not want to stereotype Americans and the experience is probably an isolated incident, adjusting to life at Cal Poly poses obstacles for international students who are often overlooked by the average undergraduate. “I was a little bit desperate sometimes because I thought that I had good friends; I met them several times and it was good,’’ said Michael Gramm, a 24-year-old electrical engi-
neering graduate student from Germany. “We talked in class and we even had fun on the weekends but now they don’t even talk to you anymore... I write them text messages or something and they don’t even text back. Sometimes I have the feeling they are very friendly and stuff but it is just on the top and they don’t want a deeper friendship.” Lausson said that although Californians are easy to get along with, people don’t often value friends as a part of their family as they do in Sweden. “It’s a different friendship here than it is back home, they kinda act like family and take care of each other (in Sweden),” Lausson said. Cal Poly doesn’t attract many international students compared to other California State Universities because of its rural environment, said Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) specialist Susan Tripp of International Education and Programs. In the 2008-2009 school year, Cal Poly has 178 international students on campus, 138 of them undergraduates. Most of the students enrolled during fall of 2008 came from Germany, Japan, France, Korea and Sweden; 34 percent studied engineering and 24 percent studied architecture and business. Gramm said his friend who attends UC Santa Barsee International, page 2
Bush advisor OK’d waterboarding Pamela Hess ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — Then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice verbally OK’d the CIA’s request to subject alleged al-Qaida terrorist Abu Zubaydah to waterboarding in July 2002, a decision memorialized a few days later in a secret memo that the Obama administration declassified last week. Rice’s role was detailed in a narrative released Wednesday by see Rice, page 2
PaBlo MarTIneZ MonsIVaIs associated press
In this 2001 file photo, then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, talks with reporters at the White House.